Max's Mobile Museum

As a preamble, this week’s post is all about fundraising for an exhibit, which I’ll explain below. Here‘s the link to donate!

The Western Science Center is a small museum, but we have big responsibilities. We're the only fully equipped paleontological museum and repository in Riverside County. In land area Riverside Co. is almost as large as New Jersey, and with over 2.4 million people it's the 10th-largest county in the US (larger than 15 different states). Providing science outreach and education to such a large population and geographic area is a daunting task!

Each year at our annual museum fundraiser, we wrap up the evening with a Special Ask, targeted donations to support a single project at the museum. In 2018, the Special Ask raised money to purchase a customized mobile museum trailer, which we named Max’s Mobile Museum (”M3” in our internal communications). This would allow us to reach people across our large and populous county, including schools that don’t have the financial or logistical means to get to Hemet to see our main museum,

The trailer we purchased is 16 feet long when closed, but opens up to form a 300 square foot exhibit space. The exterior is wrapped in paintings by award-winning paleoartist Brian Engh. The exhibits are modular, mostly consisting of 3d prints, with some casts.

To make the M3 effective, we can’t spend a lot of time with set up or take down. By refining our procedures, 2 experienced staff members can set up the museum in under 30 minutes.

Since we started M3 operations in mid-2019, it has become a huge success. Even with the loss of 18 months due to COVID, M3 has traveled over 5000 miles in Southern California, visited 128 events and schools, and been visited by more than 47,000 people.

Another aspect of M3 is that it was always planned to have a variety of exhibits that could be swapped out in as little as 2 hours. And that brings me to this year’s special ask. We’re hoping to launch a new M3 exhibit called “Life in the Ancient Seas” that will feature fossil sea life from the entire Phanerozoic, from around the world. Below is a concept sketch provided by paleoartist Cullen Townsend:

Among the featured specimens will be the lower jaw of “Mystic”, a baleen whale from the WSC collections, the sea cow Hydrodamalis cuestae (also from WSC), several toothed whales including Squalodon whitmorei, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, several ammonites, a skull of the sea turtle Archelon, numerous shark teeth, trilobites, corals, crinoids, and other invertebrates, and a cast skull of the giant Devonian placodont Dunkleosteus.

Over the next few weeks, we’re asking for public support to make this exhibit a reality. If you can help, please donate here.

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