Cranbrook Institute of Science — Attraction in Bloomfield Hills

This natural history and science museum is a part of the Cranbrook Educational Community that is an escape from the hustle and bustle of downtown Detroit. The Museum is not the easiest to get to using public transit, but when the weather is good, it is a pleasant walk in a wooded area once you enter the Cranbrook campus. There is a café onsite, but the gift shop is quite limited in scope.

Most exhibitions are typical of those in natural history museums: astronomy, biodiversity, geology and so on. While they are not fancy, they fulfill the mission of providing the basics of those disciplines. The mastodon and dinosaur/bird exhibits are thoughtfully curated, though the latter could use some updates (e.g., the specimens lack locality information).

Because of my background in anthropology, I was especially interested in their Hall of Global Cultures ("The Story of Us"). Notably, they incorporated the technologies of a digital guide and multiple touchscreens in this exhibition. How, then, does this compare to more traditional approaches such as exhibit labels (there are still a few there, but those are not at the object level)? The digital guide (who does general introductions to the main and smaller themes of the exhibition) uses a motion sensor, which means you cannot turn it on/off manually and as a result it may play repeatedly if you spend an extended period of time at an exhibit. Touchscreens work very well when there are a lot of objects in one display case. However, it is not fun when technology fails and alternatives are non-existent: three touchscreens were broken during my visit, and as there were no substitutes for them (such as pamphlets seen in older cultural/natural history exhibits), I had no way of knowing what some of the artifacts on display are. Additionally, some objects lack information on what they are made of, and the masks (plus one headdress) in the interlude section had no info at all. That being said, the anthropology collection itself has fascinating stuff and is still well worth seeing.

Lastly, I feel that the Cranbrook Institute of Science doesn't live up to its claim to be "Michigan's Museum of Natural History". While curatorial focuses on the Wolverine State are scattered here and there in the exhibits, I couldn't even find a distribution map of the biomes of Michigan. Yes, there are aesthetically pleasing habitat dioramas ("Woodlands Den"), but they are small-scale and don't have taxidermies in them.

Taken together, I wouldn't recommend making specific efforts to come see this museum, but when combined with a visit to the neighboring art museum and a stroll in the Cranbrook gardens and trails, it will make a...

For those who think that the admission is too expensive, go after 5pm on Saturday. The price is about half off. We went and walked around the grounds before we went inside, and the area outside is beautiful. There are even trails that you can go and walk around and take in the beautiful outdoors. Once we got inside, we were greeted by a very friendly ticket seller and we bought tickets for entrance and tickets to the planetarium show “Michigan Sky Tonight” which was quite delightful. The patter was quite funny and the show itself was absolutely stunning. The museum itself was fun, with only a couple of interactive exhibits being non-functional. Their walk through exhibit about different cultures was quite innovative with a “Pepper’s ghost” guide speaking to you at a couple points in the exhibit... in fact, I was quite startled when the guide and her charge walked off screen, a young woman with similar hair style walked around the corner! It caused a quick moment of confusion, but it was quite hilarious and when we spoke to the young woman, she joined in the laughter. Her friend even said it was a shame that they hadn’t been quicker to say something like “did you like our show?” After that, we went through more hallways of such interesting exhibits that there’s not really enough time to see everything at once and you’ll have to go back several times. Sadly, there weren’t many people there, but that also meant that there wasn’t a lot of crowding, and we were able to go and visit everywhere and do everything without bumping into anyone or getting bumped into by anyone. We didn’t go see the DaVinci exhibit, but I am quite certain that we’ll see it before it departs in January. All in all, it was very fun, but it does get a star off for out-of-date exhibits (like the lack of feathers on their dinosaur pictures) and broken interactive exhibits (dotted here and there) not really enough to make the visit miserable, but enough that you go “awe :( “ when you get to them, because they look like they’d be interesting if...

The Cranbrook Institute of Science is a nice place for a day trip.  The grounds are spacious and open.  There is a lake nearby and also close to the Insitute of Science is a Art Museum.  It’s a great way to spend the day whether with family, friends or a foray by yourself. The cost of entry is prohibitive.  It’s expensive.  The cafeteria inside is likewise expensive.  It might be forgiven if the offerings, both in the museum and cafeteria were of the quality one would expect for such an outlay. The difficulty with the exhibits is that a good many of them are scientific in appearance but lack any real grounding in science.  I can’t tell if it the way the materials were presented or some disconnect behind the scenes that allows an eclectic collection like this to be presented to the public. It’s not that is bad material it is just that there seems to be no logical progression through the displays.  Many of the displays themselves are ageing or outdated.  The stuffed fauna of Michigan is a case in point.  There is a poorly mounted cougar and a bear being displayed in an aggressive manner.  Bears don’t usually behave like that.  If it is meant to instill fear of bears in children then it is a success.  If it is trying to communicate the nature of bear then it fails.  As for the cougar its face is contorted in an unnatural manner and may have been dropped or just made badly in the first place. The rock collection is first rate, again, however, the arrangement is difficult to follow. All in all the Cranbrook Institute of Science looks like an attempt at entertainment through oddities – which presents, by the way, a rather unique collection of pickled frogs which have long lost their coloring.  The attempt at entertainment falls short and all in all it is not a very scientific place. The staff is routinely engaged in their own activities.  I have been to this location several times and only once was I engaged by a docent, employee...