Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture — Attraction in Seattle

Paleontology: Clearly showed the earth’s history along with evolution of several species. There was nothing unique about the displays. The local history about the giant sloth and mastodon tusk was cool though. I felt like in some sections they would say a specimen is “blank-like” and wouldnt provide the most recent or most commonly known ancestor. One thing I did learn from this exhibit was: ammonites are extinct and natiulus are not.

Biology Collections: The bones and taxidermized animals were all well displayed/done. I was especially impressed by the food web. I havent seen many in depth food webs in natural history museums as I have at this museum. Its refreshing that ecology is displayed in this way and I hope to spot this type of exhibit more often. The wall of different traits of animals like how they mate or defend themselves was also great and something I may have seen maybe once or twice.

Also it was refreshing to see so many chitons but unfortunately they did have their species name, some displays don’t focus on species name but rather used them as an example for the tree of life.

My one disappointment is the opossum displayed to have a prehensile tail. This is a tale as old as time and its wrong. Opossums can only hang on to branches with their whole body weight for very short times. Their tails are mostly used to stable themselves or collect items, but are not as strong as a monkey’s tail.

The first floor exhibits which focused on cultural wear and pacific northwest was underwhelming. Ever since I have seen the Squamish exhibit in Milwaukee and the northwest indigenous culture exhibit in Chicago I have been excited to see an exhibit like those in its origin place. The artifacts they had for display were good and the information was important but this section was fairly small.

My biggest gripe would be that these artifacts and taxidermized animals were displayed but there were no diagrams of a representation of the biomes/interactions. Those are my favorite part of natural history museums so if those are your favorite too I would skip this museum. Its great for children and for people curious of paleontology/archaeology, but there must be other museums in Seattle that cater to adults that are regular natural history...

Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture U-District Seattle, WA

Opened 10/2019...

Key location located on the West end of the UW Campus ...ideal place to house a museum. The new Burke Museum of Natural History was built within earshot of the pre-existing building (demolished in 4/2019) off of Memorial Way.

The state of the art facility cost $106 million to construct and opened just before the pandemic closures. The focal point of the Burke is to feature and highlight Northwest Native Art and Culture.

The Burke Museum is a learning experience for children and there families. And is universally appealing. Administered by the University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences.

Admission to the Museum is FREE for UW faculty and students. Adult priced admission $22 (2023)... $14 with a Student ID.

The Museum is on 4 levels and includes a Paleontology exhibit... on the top floor. As well as an interesting section dedicated to Archaeology...

The Biology of wildlife is also featured highlighted by the bird and mammal collection.

The Museum has FREE admission 🎟️ on the first Thursday of every month... And is closed on Mondays.

Museum tickets can be purchased online (timed entry) or at the ticket booth (on site)...

Museum hours 10 AM - 5 PM...

The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture is a welcomed addition to the community and to the UW Campus. I was overall impressed by the exhibits and there visual...

The Burke is one of the museums that participates on free museum days on the first Thursday of the month. Compared to other museums around town this one seems relatively small. Despite that the museum packs plenty of fascinating and useful information! The museum seems like something like a couple of Anthropology courses with a hint of Geology. Downstairs contains various cultural displays. The various displays do not focus on one culture but a variety of them. There are artifacts belonging to Northwest Native American tribes, Latino cultures, European and Asian. Really a little bit of everything. It is fascinating! Upstairs there is more the physical Anthropology, Archeology and Geology part of the museum. There are various fossils from plants, crustaceans and dinosaur remains here. They even have a display with artifacts during the Ice Age. One room covers volcano information and how they work. There is also a chart of all of the volcanoes along the West Coast in which they chart and estimate the frequency of eruptions each one has had. Of course there are mammal display cases too! In the front lobby there was a little display with a porcupine and other unusual mammals where you could touch them too see how they feel. It was their skin or they were mounted. They were not alive. The Burke was a fun visit and those free museum visits should be taken...