Bean Museum

The Monte L. Bean Museum is located on Brigham Young University campus in Provo, Utah. This museum is limited to students though. Anyone can attend, and its always free admission! The Bean Museum often hosts many free events as well, besides free admission, for people to come and participate in.

At least once a semester, BYU museums will host “Night at the Museums” which is when every museum on campus is free (since not all are)! You are able to hop on a bus and see all 8 museums that campus has to offer including the Bean Museum and the new Zions Gallery walkthrough.

The Bean Museum is directly especially for kids. There are stuffed animals all over depicting animals seen all over the world. At the entrance to the museum, there is a gift shop to buy a souvenir remembering your visit to the museum. Besides the gift shop, giant giraffes, hippos, lions, and birds are all circling around huge globe hanging from the ceiling. There is a free photo booth to take a picture as you continue past down the hall. Behind the huge globe, there are often free cougar tail maple donuts for visitors to enjoy as the walk throughout the museum.

One of the biggest rooms has some cool artifacts from ancient peoples and what they created. My favorite is the wooden, hand crafted, Noah’s Ark. You can also see some of the rarest albino animals that have ever lived and are displayed. If you continue downstairs, there is a giant room full of birds! Hundreds of quails, pigeons, and even ducks are displayed. There is also a giant amphitheater room full of chairs to sit and watch the animal show!

The animal show is one of the coolest parts about the Bean Museum.

It is between half an hour to an hour long, depending on how many animals are displayed. BYU students perform the show. They help kids recognize animals from close up pictures of them and tell the kids facts about the animals. Anyone can attend, but it is mostly aimed for kids. Most of the time, they will bring out 3-4 animals as well. In the past, I have seen snakes, owls, turtles, and even a bug or two. It really depends on how big the audience is and if the presenter is comfortable bringing the animals out for showing. Kids can often hold and touch the animals as well.

Besides the amphitheater show, there are some cool exhibits to see. There is an underwater exhibit, saraha exhibit, desert exhibit, and wild Africa exhibit. These are all stuffed animals as well, but many of them rotate around. There is also a pay area for kids where they can climb around inside a mini tree and help find animals in a puzzle.

The upstairs potion of the museum has more animals to see as well as exhibits that change each month. This past month was photographs of nature and you can vote on our favorite photos. Definitely stop by the Bean Museum whenever you get a chance!