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As Los Angeles museums prepare to introduce a comprehensive remodel, staff are looking for new ways to engage younger visitors. A key aspect of this effort involves revamping how La Brea Tar Pits & Museum tells its Ice Age tale.
The Museum is an absolute must for visitors to Los Angeles. Its gooey asphalt pits have long been recognized as an abundance of Ice Age fossils, making these pits and museum some of the world’s premier fossil sites.
Walking through the pits, it’s easy to imagine yourself in an epic PG movie, with mammoths and saber-tooth tigers roaming freely through the area. There are numerous fossils on display, while children particularly love playing around with life-sized statues of mammoths or tigers!
But the real beauty of these pits lies in watching scientists excavate and prepare fossils on-site – this is truly unique experience and there is nowhere else you can witness it like this on Earth!
J.Z. Gilbert, a Los Angeles high school biology teacher, recognized that the La Brea Tar Pits offered many opportunities for hands-on science learning and public outreach. He encouraged his students to excavate in these pits where they quickly unearthed fossil after fossil.
La Brea Tar Pits & Museum now holds over 3.5 million Ice Age fossils and remains one of the world’s most active urban fossil excavation sites. Open to both children and adults alike, it offers an unforgettable experience that brings dinosaurs that made Los Angeles famous to life!
