Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

At first we were wondering if we will go see a museum because we were driving through a very residential neighborhood. Then, as promised by google maps, at the end of a normal looking residential street, was this cute museum!

There was a large whale skeleton that greeted us ...

The museum was a single story school looking building with different rooms allocated to different things. It was target to really young kids (aged <10 in our opinion) to introduce them to science concepts. They had a nice microscope which projected the images on a 52 inch TV. The kids just stayed put there and viewed rocks, snail sheels, anything and everything and watched the images. We had fun at that exhibit as well..

Here is Jr. after focussing on some grainy rock

They had one room dedicated to space and space related items.. the thing that caught our eye in this room was this meteor.

There was a large exhibit about archaeology and excavations that focussed on two things. The pygmy mammoth, which I did not know anything about till this trip, especially that they were found in this area 12,000 years ago, and the Indian tribes of the area that were opressed by the settlers. 

The kids were not happy after listening to how the natives were treated and are still feeling the after effects of those days.

The little one seemed to know all about it already because she had read this book about  a girl who had survived alone on the Channel island for 18 years in a book that was part of her school read! The conversation started and ended with "Appa, you don't know anything!". If there is one thing I actually do know by now, it is that I don't know anything. 

There was a beautiful cheat sheet, in case there is a time scale quiz! 

They had a cute Christmas tree with butterflies as ornaments. We loved it!

We spent less than 2 hours here, but the kids had a good time. There were smiles all around, a few new things learned and information tucked away for future use. 

This reminded us of the Kids discovery museum in Sausalito. 

It is indoors and the kids feel nice and warm and have fun doing science work! The exhibits are very nicely done and the explanations are very simple.

The staff was also very friendly and helpful and guided the kids through various activities. 

This place was small but made our day!

Strongly recommended, if you have kids under 10. This is a great place to visit in Santa Barbara.