Like most exhibits at the Liberty Science Center this one is pretty impressive and a feast for the senses.  Educational with lots of hands-on, interactive components, massive video installations, gorgeous murals, a custom made soundtrack, life size replicas of these enormous animals, real artifacts and amazing fossils. Plus, through November 10, 2010 Lyuba, a perfectly preserved one month old mammoth, is on display. The exhibit gives you the real skinny on these huge creatures shattering some long standing myths, like: are elephant graveyards for real?  Did they really help build the pyramids?  And are they the pre-historic ancestors of the modern elephant?  (Nope, nope and nope.)

Upon entering the exhibit you are greeted with scene setting video installation that shows you a photographic vision of present day and then moves backward for 20,000 years till you are looking at lush countryside with computer animated furry looking elephants grazing and walking around, followed by a display of replica mastodon and mammoth heads along side the animal’s real fossilized skulls, jaws and teeth.

The exhibit then delves into everything you could ever want to know about these mammals: how they held up their trunks, what they did with their tusks, how they are classified, what they eat and what they poop.  Interactive panels bring these aspects of the animals to life in an easy to understand way.  Discover how their fur may have felt through touchable elements.  Or explore how they used their tusks to wrestle and how much food they would have eaten in one day through hands on activities or my son’s favorite, the beat the clock type puzzle matching the animal to the habitat in which they lived. 

Displays of cave painting and spears illustrate the relationship between mammoth and man as well as the eventual demise of the animal.  There is no way to miss the 13 foot high replica of the rare Columbian Mammoth or the tremendous skeleton of the giant American Mastodon.

The absolute best part of the entire experience is learning about and seeing Lyuba.  The healthy one month old mammoth that died suddenly and was consequently buried in mud, then ‘pickled’ by bacterial acids and eventually frozen in what we consider western Siberia only to be found 42,000 years later in 2007 by reindeer herders.  This amazing infant is helping scientists to understand more about the mammoth.  She is part of the collections at the Shemanovskiy Museum and Exhibition Center in Russia but thanks to this exhibit created by The Field Museum we can see her in the United States.   She will be on view until November 11, 2010.

Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of The Ice Age will be open until January 9, 2011 but the star of the show, Lyuba, is only on view until November 11, 2010.  

Liberty Science Center
Liberty State Park, 222 Jersey City Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ

Admission: Adults are $15.75, kids 2-12 are $11.50
While Lyuba is on view there is an additional fee to see the Mammoths and Mastodons exhibit of $5.25 for adults and $3.50 for children ages 2 -12

More enriching museum exhibits for kids can be found in the Mommy Poppins Museum Guide or our Fall Fun Guide.