St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm — Attraction in Saint George

St. George Dino discovery site is a dinosaur gem.

My three kids, 10-9-7, love dino related anything, so this museum was a must while we were in town. As we walked through building I was blown away by two main things:

The educational setup might be one of the best we’ve encountered in years. Other museums’ long winded plaques are too hard to read for my youngest and don’t keep the attention of my oldest, so all the cool information feels wasted. But here! My kids stopped at each video and listened intently. The plaques and the markings on the fossils were set up to build on the videos, so it was easy for them to absorb the information and make relevant connections. They were talking about the facts they learned far into the rest of the day!

The gift shop had thoughtful, quality items. There were very few gimmicky items, and I felt safe to let my kiddos pick out something special. I know gift shops are a vital way for these businesses to stay open! There’s also nothing cooler as a kid than getting to walk away with something. But too often I cringe knowing that what I walk away with will break soon or be forgotten. At the Dino Discovery, the locally crafted or educationally relevant material made supporting the museum in this way an easy choice! The kids picked out an excavation toy and I was surprised at the size and quality of the toy fossils that came out of it! They were thrilled, and it ignited their imagination.

My only sticking point was the outdoor park. The concept is brilliant, but it felt lack-luster. It seemed like the walk through history was part way through breaking down and forgotten about, which was unfortunate. The parts that did capture my kids attention were the dig site (where they could uncover a couple fossils of their own and the museum did provide a few dig toys for them to use). And the giant dinosaur at the front of the park that they could physically interact with. My wish is to see this part of the museum better maintained and updated because it would be a huge factor in us returning!

Overall, the Dinosaur Discovery entertained my small family for a good hour while on sight, and for the whole day as they talked about what they learned and imagined themselves as archeologists, too! Thank you to the staff who greeted us, and who checked in on us part way through to see if we had any questions. You can tell that this place is a...

We enjoyed this a lot and highly recommend! It's a different kind of museum experience than we're used to. It's an active dig site which allows the public to come in and see what they've discovered and what they are discovering. There's an area where you can view the scientists in the lab cleaning and studying new fossils, which was very cool. Here are a couple things to note:

-- The outside area is not a playground; it kind of looks like one in the pictures. It's an outdoor part of the museum. Not a problem just not what we were expecting.

-- You have to call a day or two in advance if you want to do the lab tour add on. This wasn't clear on the website when we were planning our visit, so we thought we could just pay extra when we got there. We went for my daughter's birthday and she had been really looking forward to that, but since I didn't realize the need to make pre-arrangements for this, we weren't able to do it.

-- There were not museum staff in the exhibit part, so there were many times when we had questions about what we were seeing, but nobody to ask. It's entirely possible the folks at the front desk could have answered some of them, but it would feel kind of strange to keep walking back to the front desk over and over.

Those are just a couple of things to note, but they are totally not deal breakers. We enjoyed this a lot and it's a great thing to experience if you visit the area! There is a small but "really fun" (according to my 9-year-old son) kids' play area in the front of the museum and the gift shop had...

Adults trip to the dinosaur track site. It was pretty awesome but I’ll admit that some people might have to try harder to see the coolness of such a place. But if you try, it’s totally there. Start by imagining how rare it is for a footprint to get turned into rock and survive 10s of millions of years….and go from there. Exhibits on geology, past ecosystems, naming of footprints (spoiler: different from naming of dinosaurs), how to tell directionality of water flow, all sorts of cool stuff.

Also note that trace fossils - like footprints - often take a bit of imagination. Not usually my thing honestly. But here, in general, these are really well preserved and labeled and can be readily recognized. And there’s SO many of them. Even a butt print. Make it a scavenger hunt for the kids - finding the butt print. Ha ha ha.

But I really did enjoy it. Definitely...