LBS 375 Project

Alyssa Mohr
Rebeca Barba
Jessica Martinez
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles is a very popular site when it comes
to fourth grade or fifth grade fieldtrips. The Natural History Museum is located near
downtown Los Angeles and is open seven days a week. The major holidays the museum
is closed are New Years Day, Christmas Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving.
Members, children two and under, and California teachers are all free. Otherwise, the
admission varies by age. The highest cost of one admission is twelve dollars. This makes
it more accessible for teachers to plan a fieldtrip for his/her class. The museum even
offers a free class fieldtrip for any teacher who applies.
The museum has three levels: G level, Level 1, and Level 2. Most of the main
exhibits are on levels one and two. The museum has many exhibits that students would
enjoy visiting. The Becoming LA exhibit shows the history of Southern California, from
the Spanish mission era to the present. It would be a good idea to take fourth or fifth
grade students to this exhibition because it has a lot of relevance to what they will be
learning in their history lessons. This exhibit walks students through different time
periods with artifacts that were important during that time. The time periods are broken
up into six sections: the Spanish mission era, the Mexican rancho era, the early American
period, the new American city, the Great Depression, and WWII to the present. The
teacher can use this exhibit as a tool to get students up close to artifacts from different
time periods. A possible lesson that can come from this exhibit could be that each student
selects a certain artifact that catches his or her attention and writes a paragraph about how
it is related to California history.
There is also an exhibit of gems and minerals. There is a Gold Rush section
within this particular exhibit. The Gold Rush is taught to fourth grade students, so this

LBS 375 Project

Alyssa Mohr
Rebeca Barba
Jessica Martinez
would be a perfect opportunity to sum up that lesson. This exhibit has different tools that
were used to dig for gold. Other items displayed in this exhibit are clothing, pans, and
shovels that were used by the miners. The students will have the opportunity to visually
see how the miners worked and the tools they used during those times. After visiting the
exhibit, the students will have a better outlook on how it was to pan for gold due to the
minimal technology involved.
The strengths of this museum are the affordability of the site, the amount of
different exhibits that are available, how willing the museum is to helping out teachers
when it comes to class fieldtrips, and how the exhibits can be related to what is being
taught in the classroom. One weakness that stands out in this particular museum as it
pertains to fourth and fifth graders is that there are not a lot of California exhibits. This
can be a problem only because most of the curriculum in the schools during these years is
about California history and the missions. I think that this museum would be more
appropriate for curriculum that has to do with science. There are a lot of exhibits about
mammals, dinosaurs, nature, bugs, and gems and minerals. Another weakness of the
museum as a whole is how there are so many different exhibits and activities, the students
might not have enough time to embrace all the knowledge in one day.
Overall, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles has a lot of positive aspects
to it when it comes to bringing it into the classroom. It is a great site for a fieldtrip for
grades third to fifth. The museum also has a reasonable admission cost. This museum is
also easy to find and it is open seven days a week, which makes it even easier for
teachers to plan a fieldtrip for his or her students. This museum is a great visual tool for

LBS 375 Project

Alyssa Mohr
Rebeca Barba
Jessica Martinez
certain curriculum and it always helps kids learn when they are able to compare what
they are reading about to something that is visual and tangible.