Milwaukee Museum

Our family took a little Spring Break trip to the Milwaukee Public Museum a couple of days ago, particularly to see the Body Worlds 1 Exhibit, which is being exhibited until June. The trip was a really fun day for the entire family. Milwaukee is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from home, so we left around 7am - quite early for me and the kids. It was Spring Break for Mr. Math Teacher, but also for the Milwaukee Public School System, so we expected lots of kids.

The Body Worlds exhibit was just amazing. The tickets are sold for specific times - ours were for 10am. We had to wait for just a few minutes before they let us in to the exhibit. One very slight problem was that the exhibit was rather crowded, especially the very first part. The Body Worlds exhibit is a set of human bodies that have been donated for preservation through "plastination". This is a technique in which the bodies can be dissected and then preserved and hardened for exhibition. There were a number of complete human bodies on display. Generally, these were for showing the musculoskeletal system. They were displayed in many different positions - dancing, jumping, archery, playing basketball. Some of them had sections of muscles removed or pulled away from the rest of the body to show the underlying sections. There were glass cases in the middle of the rooms in which were shown various organs of the body - most healthy, but some diseased. The smoker's lung was the most impressive.

My favorite part of the exhibit was the section relating to pregnancy. They had this in a separate room for propriety's sake. There were fetuses from implantation through about 8 weeks size shown on their own. Around the room were exhibits of fetuses in the uterus from 16 weeks up through 38 weeks. The most impressive exhibit was of a pregnant woman who was 38 weeks pregnant. The labelling information said that the woman had requested that her body be donated prior to her death. She and her baby died when she was 38 weeks along. The exhibit was dissected in a way that showed how the baby sat in the uterus, along with the placenta. It also displayed how the baby took up so much room within the abdominal cavity.

I strongly encourage people to see this exhibit. It was quite educational. My kids were a little freaked out by the nature of the showing. Ga'Hoole Girl was pretty quiet through most of the exhibit. Wild Man didn't have a problem until Mr. Math Teacher told him that these were bodies from people who had been alive - then he was a little uncomfortable. The bodies are shown naked and with the genitalia in place (most are male). They did have some female reproductive organs on display. Ga'Hoole Girl was amazed (as am I) at how small the female uterus is compared to how large it becomes in late pregnancy.

The rest of the museum was also lots of fun. We spent about an hour in Body Worlds and another two hours in the rest of the museum. We left because I had gotten a headache and the crowds and noise had gotten pretty bad. We missed the entire Africa exhibit and most of the North America exhibit. So, we have a good reason to return.

There were a couple of real highlights for us. First of all, we really enjoyed the butterfly house. They had a good size butterfly and insect exhibit, but then also a butterfly house with several different species of butterflies and moths. Ga'Hoole Girl seemed to attract the butterflies the most, but Wild Man did eventually get one to land on him.

We recently read Black Horses for the King which is a story about the early use of horseshoes (as well as about King Arthur). One of the characters in the book taught his apprentices about horses and hooves using the dissected lower leg of a horse that had been put down. When we went through Body Worlds, we saw a preserved horse (believe it or not) and we all looked closely at the lower leg to see how the hoof looked.

Another exhibit caught our eyes because of a book we've been reading. We just finished A Single Shard, about a pottery apprentice in medieval Korea. In the story, the apprentice wants to learn to make pottery with a celadon glaze - celadon glaze is a specific type of glaze that leaves a grayish green color. In the book, another potter develops an inlay technique that is used with the celadon glazing technique. At the museum, we saw some real celadon glazed pottery with inlay just like the book described - from the same time period! It is really cool to see what we've just read about.

If you get a chance to go to the museum - take it. You'll love it!