Virtual Programs

Virtual Programs

NEW! INTRODUCING THE E.L. WIEGAND DIGITAL LEARNING STUDIO

Due to generous support from the E.L. Wiegand Foundation, we are thrilled to announce the opening of the new E.L. Wiegand Digital Learning Studio.

Museum of the Rockies has been facilitating online learning programs for students across Montana, the nation, and around the world since 2018, and with this new space and technology, we anticipate reaching more students and life-long learners than ever before.

Since 2020, the museum’s education, paleontology, and exhibit teams have overseen the conversion and renovation of an outdated media control room to a new state-of-the-art space to produce educational digital learning programs.

As of March of 2023, this new space is fully equipped with multiple cameras, including one for streaming to classrooms over Zoom, one for PowerPoint presentations, and one for showing close details, like the serrations of a Tyrannosaurus rex tooth. There is also a green screen, which will allow educators to show maps, dig sites, and many other exciting possibilities. The room has been flushed with teaching specimens of all varieties of biological, geological, and historical nature.

All décor in this space is meant to be touched, taught with, and will inspire curiosity for the natural world in all who visit Museum of the Rockies. The front of the studio that faces the Siebel Dinosaur Complex is lined with floor-to-ceiling windows that allow museum visitors to view and watch our programs in real-time.

This year, we joined as a content provider for the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC) platform, the best streaming collaborative network in the world, which will allow us to stream lessons to CILC's 40,000 active members in 112 countries with the potential to reach 3.5 million students worldwide with our programs about Montana history, paleontology, dinosaurs, Native American and Indigenous history, and so much more.

Thanks to the E.L. Wiegand Foundation, we can now inspire curiosity and life-long learning in all who attend our digital programming in this stunning new technological space. It is our mission to bring Montana to the world, and the world to Montana, and we express our sincere gratitude for this invaluable opportunity.

To book or explore virtual programs, email us at moroutreach@montana.edu or book directly on CILC.org. View past livestream program recordings on the Online Learning Resources page of this website.

VIRTUAL PROGRAM OFFERINGS

Virtual Fossil Fridays

May 3, 10, 17, 24, 31
Free and open to the public.
9 a.m. via Zoom at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/8820...

Join Outreach Program Manager Ashley Hall for Virtual Fossil Friday! Discover the fascinating history of one of the museum's incredible fossil specimens and learn how it contributes to our understanding of life on Earth. Bring your curiosity and questions! 

Streamable Learning Virtual Programs

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Streamable Learning Virtual Program Info

Our partners at Streamable Learning have made MOR programs available for free to schools, libraries, and homeschools. Please register using the links found in the above grid. Livestream programs utilize Zoom livestreaming rooms. To access, you will be required to download Zoom, which can be done at zoom.us/download

Virtual Field Trips

Can’t travel to the museum? Explore the museum from your home or classroom!

Virtual field trips run approximately an hour and offer live, one-on-one interactions through our museum galleries in real time via Zoom. Outreach Program Manager Ashley Hall, will guide you through our exhibit halls and highlight our many incredible artifacts, dinosaurs, and so much more. Virtual tours require a Zoom login, computer/smart device, webcam, and the internet.

  • Classes are $50 each and free for Title 1 schools
  • To book a virtual field trip, email visitmor@montana.edu.
  • Programs are typically 40 minutes with time for questions but can be adjusted by request.

Have you ever wanted to walk with dinosaurs? Take a tour of Museum of the Rockies’ famous Hall of Horns and Teeth on this live, VIRTUAL exploration! This tour covers the Late Cretaceous Period, which was the last, most dynamic period of the dinosaurs before the devastating extinction 66 million years ago. Virtually visit our world-class collection of Tyrannosaurus rex to see how they grew and changed from tiny tyrant to bone-crushing adult; get nose-to-nose with Triceratops, see dinosaur skin fossils, and explore the ancient ecosystems in which the dinosaurs lived.

Explore dinosaurs from the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods! Take a virtual tour of the Museum of the Rockies’ famous Hall of Giants where HUGE, long-necked sauropods ruled and Allosaurus was the largest predator of its time. This tour covers our most famous residents – “Big Al” the Allosaurus, sauropod dinosaurs, the sickle-clawed predator Deinonychus, the burrowing dinosaur, Oryctodromeus; and plesiosaurs that once swam Montana’s ancient seaway.

Want to bring history to life? Explore Montana’s rich Paugh History Hall artifacts from the 1890s and into the 20th century. From gold panning to fur trapping, to life in the 1890s, this virtual history tour explores the many dynamic stories that our artifacts can tell. If interested in this tour, please specify what aspect of Montana history you would like your tour guide to focus on or feature.

Virtual Classes

Learn with us from your home or classroom from the museum’s digital learning studio! Virtual classes run approximately an hour in length and cover a variety of subjects in natural history, archaeology, paleontology, history, and so many other -ologies. Virtual field trips require a Zoom login, computer/smart device, webcam, and the internet.

Join us to learn all about Montana’s dinosaurs! From Tyrannosaurus rex to Triceratops, Montana is home to some of the world’s most famous dinosaur discoveries. In this program, you will learn where some of Museum of the Rockies’ best fossils have been discovered in the state and why Montana’s geology is perfect for discovering some of the world’s most famous dinosaurs.

How do scientists categorize dinosaurs? Giant, long-necked sauropods, frilled ceratopsians, and duck-billed hadrosaurs are only three of the five groups of dinosaurs that we will explore in this program. Join us to learn more about the lives of these incredible dinosaurs and see real dinosaur fossils up close. Bring your curiosity and questions!

Rocks, rock! While rocks aren’t living things (or even squishy, for that matter!), they still go through cycles – changing and morphing from one type to another over BILLIONS of years’ time. Learn about the three basic rock types with paleontologist Ashley Hall, and how sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks form and change through Earth’s dynamic forces.

What can we learn about dinosaurs by looking inside of their bones? Join Museum of the Rockies Paleohistology Lab Manager Ellen-Therese Lamm to explore her unique role in science and discover how researchers use microscopic information to piece together details about extinct animals.

The Hell Creek Formation in Montana and surrounding areas contains the fossils of some of the last non-avian dinosaurs to walk the Earth. Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, Pachycephalosaurus, and more all roamed the area about 66 million years ago. Join MOR's John R. Horner Curator of Paleontology Dr. John Scannella to travel back to the end of the Cretaceous Period and meet the dinosaurs of the Hell Creek Formation!

From discovery to seeing enormous dinosaurs in the museum, a fossil’s journey is fascinating. MOR Paleontology Lab and Field Manager, Lee Hall, will tell the story of the process of paleontology - from first discovering a fossil in the field to exhibiting entire dinosaurs in a museum in a fun and engaging way. From very young students to high school, this program will help illustrate the importance of paleontology and its role within the sciences, and as an exciting career for students interested in studying the history of life on Earth.

What did T.rex look like growing up? Through Montana’s rich fossil record, paleontologists have pieced together what these incredible dinosaurs looked like - from tiny hatchlings to bone-crushing adults. What did their eggs look like? Did they have feathers? What did a teenage T.rex look like? Join Scott Williams, Paleontology Lab and Field Specialist to learn about the dynamic life of Tyrannosaurus rex.

Birds are dinosaurs, and they are hard working parents! Birds care for their babies by providing food and protection so that they can grow strong enough to leave the nest, but what about their ancient dinosaur relatives? Dinosaur parental care was a real mystery until the discovery of Maiasaura nesting grounds in northern Montana. Join MOR Paleontology Field Professional Lee Hall for a trip to Montana’s ancient dinosaur nursery, where you will learn about dinosaur nests, eggs, and babies and why Maiasaura really was the “good mother lizard”!

How much of the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World franchise is based in reality, and what is movie magic? Can scientists recreate dinosaurs from ancient amber? Does life really find a way? Learn about the process of paleontology with a real paleontologist and the paleobiology of the world’s most famous dinosaurs through the lens of these popular films.

Have you ever wondered how dinosaur bones are discovered? How do you become a paleontologist? Schedule one of our museum’s own paleontologists to talk to your class or school to answer all your students’ hard, fun, and challenging questions about dinosaurs.

What happens to a dinosaur bone after it comes back from the field? Talk to one of our museum’s fossil preparators about the tools of the trade and what it’s like to clean fossils for their job.

Do your students love history? What is it like to work in a museum? Schedule our museum’s Curator of History, Michael Fox, to answer questions about our museum’s history collection from Montana and the mysteries they contain that are yet unsolved.

Virtual Class + Outreach Kit Hybrid Program

Book this ultimate experience for your class and receive a virtual program WITH an outreach kit for MOR hands-on fun! Outreach kits are checked out by the week, and the virtual program will be scheduled in coordination with the teacher.

  • To book a virtual class + outreach kit, email moroutreach@montana.edu
  • Fossils Kit | Grades 2 – 6
  • The fee of $140 includes a virtual program and a week’s rental of the outreach kit. The fee for shipping back to MOR is the responsibility of the renter, school, or institution. 
  • Free for Title 1 schools

What is a forest? Discover the components of a forest ecosystem through the case study of Yellowstone National Park. This hybrid virtual program pairs the materials in the Yellowstone Forest Ecosystem outreach kit with the expertise of a live Museum of the Rockies educator. Give your students the opportunity to touch real skulls and pelts of various animals, as well as examine rubber tracks, books, and more! Lessons focus on food webs, animal adaptations, species diversity, and human impacts.

Dig in and explore paleontology, biology, and geology through hands-on fun! The kit includes interactive lessons that provide students with the context necessary for studying dinosaurs by introducing them to the geologic timeline and key events in Earth’s history. This hybrid virtual program pairs the materials in the Dinosaur Basics Kit with the expertise of a live Museum of the Rockies educator. Students will study the differences between avian and non-avian dinosaurs, make observations about the size and measurements of different dinosaurs, and draw comparisons between the habitats and biological characteristics of modern animals and dinosaurs.

Virtual Event Questions

Did we miss your question, or did one come up after your livestream viewing? Please email us at moroutreach@montana.edu and let us know which livestream you attended. Thank you so much for watching!