I visited the Royal Ontario Museum with my two boys (9 yrs & 11 yrs) to check out the new exhibit and world premiere of Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants From Gondwana, a limited time exhibit at the ROM. Earlier this year, I wrote about the ROM’s ‘must see’ permanent dinosaur display, and I have to say if your kids like that exhibit, they will most likely LOVE Ultimate Dinosaurs.
Ultimate Dinosaurs is the largest exhibition of southern dinosaurs ever mounted in North America and the largest dinosaur exhibition in the ROM’s history, it includes some very cool dinosaur discoveries, including the awesome Giganotosaurus who was bigger than T-Rex! Alot of these dinosaurs are virtually unknown to North Americans – most have just been unearthed in the last 20 years and have never been displayed in Canada before.
The exhibit took about 30-40 minutes to wander through from start to finish. It includes not only a large number of skeletons and artifacts but also a number of informative movies and some very interesting learning centres explaining how the land masses of the earth have moved apart over time and how this massive shift affected the evolution of dinosaurs.
The Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibit brought these ancient beasts right into the 21st century in a way we’ve never experienced before, and this is where I think it’s appeal for kids really shines. It’s not just the touch screens with info and videos that are spread throughout with plenty of stations for everyone, the ROM has thrown in some pretty unique goodies as well. I think the coolest were the slide mounted ipads set up on a number of the larger skeletons which actually let you point at any portion of the dinosaur in front of you to view with skin or skeleton, or even have it come to life as if it were moving. The ROM calls these AR stations – AR standing for Augmented Reality that virtually flesh out dinosaur skeletons. These were pretty popular so we had to wait a brief time to get our hands on one to play with but worth the wait to engage the kids in this neat way. The exhibit also offers a free downloadable iphone app that can be used throughout the exhibit at specially marked areas, a reactive video wall and an interactive timeline station.
Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants From Gondwana is running at the ROM in Toronto for a limited time so don’t miss out on it. Because this is a special exhibit you’ll pay an extra $10 for adults and $5 for children on top of regular admission prices.
