BYU museums create scavenger hunt for students

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A student gives a guided tour of the Education in Zion exhibit in summer of 2019. This campus museum is one of the five participating in March at the Museums. (Riley Pierce)

BYU students can participate in a pandemic-friendly scavenger hunt across the five campus museums during March at the Museums.

Museum of Art educator Philipp Malzl said each campus museum usually hosts one night a year when hours are extended and visitors can go on exclusive tours of the exhibits. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, this year’s Night at the Museums was replaced with a full month of scavenger hunts.

March at the Museums participants can pick up a flyer at any of the five BYU museums, Malzl said. The flyer has clues for each museum that can be solved and handed in for a sticker. Once a participant collects all five stickers, they can show the stickers at any museum front desk and win a water bottle.

The five participating BYU museums are the Museum of Art, Education in Zion, the Bean Life Science Museum, the Museum of Paleontology and the Museum of Peoples and Cultures. The March at the Museums flyer and Museum of Art website have a map with locations of all five buildings.

“Each museum on campus has its niche,” Education in Zion curator Heather Seferovich said. “It’s nice for people to learn that there are multiple exhibits on campus and where they are.”

The BYU Museum of Paleontology is part of March at the Museums this year. It has many dinosaur bones and casts on display like this one. (Jaren Wilkey/BYU Photo)

Malzl said he hopes both adults and children will take advantage of the museums BYU has as institutions of learning outside of a classroom.

“The exhibitions are constantly changing, which is fun for me personally to always learn about new time periods and movements and styles,” he said, adding that he gets to see people learn and get excited about new exhibitions.

Spanish translation senior Jenna Sandau said there have also been changes to the Museum of Paleontology where she works. It was closed for renovations until March of this year, when it opened just in time for the scavenger hunt.

Seferovich said the purpose of this new activity is to get students to come to the museums and be rewarded for it. “I hope we’ve given people a good excuse to come and see the treasures we have here on campus.”

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