Lego at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History!

Lego. How often do you associate them with a museum? I am going to guess not often. Unless they are in the museum's kids zone. But, while at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History in Halifax, we got to see some pretty neat stuff. And I will be covering this museum more in the future because I believe PEI should have its own natural history museum. But, today, we are going to focus on an exhibition you wouldn't expect to see at a natural history museum. Lego!

Emmett and Unikitty! (Photo Credit: Kelly MacKenzie)

Museums are for more than "looking at and storing old things," as I once heard it said. They can be used to spark imagination and inspire creativity. If you ever have a chance to go to a natural history museum, GO... as we don't have one...yet.

Lego has become part of our culture. We, myself included, grew up playing with them, learning skills from them - organization, creativity, resource management, three-dimensional thinking, problem-solving, colour coordination, engineering, math, fine motor skills, building up hand and arm muscles, and understanding directions if you have a playset. So an exhibition featuring them only makes sense.

So the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History exhibited the Lego Holiday Village until January 12, 2019 (the space will soon be dedicated to the Dinosaurs Unearthed exhibit). This was a large exhibit!

Check out all the details! Throughout the display are historic Halifax buildings and the images of the 12 Days of Christmas. (Image Credit: Aaron Klassen) 

Below, you can see the challenges they had set up for the exhibit. You could select a challenge and try to find the corresponding pieces in the exhibit.

These were the challenges you could undertake in the Lego exhibit. As you can see, they included finding animals, pieces from the Lego Movie, the 12 Days of Christmas, Charlie Brown, and so many more! (Image Credit: Kelly MacKenzie)

These are some of Halifax's historic buildings that you could try to find in the exhibit. (Image Credit: Kelly MacKenzie)

Throughout the room, there were other pieces in display cases.

RCMP Musical Ride. You can't see it in this picture, but Grounds Keeper Willy and Ned Flanders are in attendance. (Image Credit: Kelly MacKenzie)

The Kwik-E-Mart. (Image Credit: Kelly MacKenzie)

There were also play areas, where you could build your own creations using Legos.

Lego have become an important part of our culture and learning and seeing a large exhibit showing how they can be used to show historic buildings, parts of our culture, and parts of our pop culture was amazing. I also loved this exhibit because it proves that you can find unexpected things in a museum if you give them a chance!

So this year, I am proposing a challenging to you:
1. Visit a museum. This could be a museum on PEI or in another province
2. Find an interesting exhibit/artefact/experience there and take a picture. It could be an exhibit/artefact you weren't expecting, one you just connected with, or one you found fascinating, or an experience you had while there that you really enjoyed
3. Upload your photo onto social media so other people can see it too