Animal Secrets

How are you like a bear? Could a deer jump over your dad’s head?

An exhibit called “Animal Secrets” at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, encourages kids and families to look at the world as a naturalist does. The exhibit was created by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland. It continues in Pittsburgh until December. The exhibit will also travel to Rochester, Minnesota, and Chicago.

In the woods

In one of the exhibit sections, visitors meet animals of the forest by entering their environments. For example, kids can crawl into a hollow log and see where a raccoon makes its home. • Animal secret: An American beaver can fell, or cut down, a tree in just three minutes using its front teeth.

Exploring the meadow

In another section, visitors can part the grass in a meadow to follow animal footprints and listen to sounds to track animals. • Animal secret: Using their long, powerful legs, deer can run up to 40 mph and jump over a 6-foot-tall person.

Along the stream

Animal Secrets shows kids how to look more closely at nature and find the answers to questions about animals.

A dry stream table in the exhibit teaches how animals find food and shelter and take care of their babies. • Animal secret: Beavers are especially equipped to work underwater. When they swim underwater, their nose and ear valves close to keep water out.

In the cave

Visitors to the cave area use their senses of sight, hearing and touch to learn about animals who live in and visit caves, such as bats. They also get to solve an animal mystery using bones, fur and tracks. • Animal secret: Bears, like humans, use trails and roads to get to their food and water sources.

Be a naturalist

In the Animal Secrets exhibit, kids can become naturalists, or experts in the study of natural history. Students can work with real field equipment to examine natural items, just as professional naturalists do.

Kids can compare five animal skulls and create a museum exhibit out of natural artifacts, or items from our environment. Puzzle pieces with different animals tracks can be assembled to figure out which animal made the tracks.

• Animal secret: Foxes stalk their prey, much like a cat. They are also known to play with their catch before killing it.

Mini Fact: A male bear is called a boar, a female bear is called a sow, and a baby bear is called a cub. photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

A young naturalist carefully examines and sorts rocks and shells to create his own museum collection.

Visitors can create their own stories about the animals who live near the stream and help them build homes using trees and logs.

Kids discover fish in an eagle’s nest at the Animal Secrets exhibit. Can you think of why there are fish in the nest?

A dad and daughter build a giant model of an ant.