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Windy City Guide.com Cover Article
“Nature Unleashed” is a sleek and exciting exhibit that lets you explore the fury and the science of natural disasters in a sensory, hands-on way. From artifacts damaged by Hurricane Katrina to enthralling interactive displays, you’ll get a sense of how these weather phenomena happen, how humans deal with them and what science can do to help us prepare. Visitors can examine real lava specimens or experience a tornado on five giant surrounding screens—it envelops you as you watch. Get a glimpse of earthquake activity in real-time on a world map, or create your own virtual reality volcano by varying gas and silica levels inside a rupture on the Earth’s surface. You’ll learn about past disasters, courtesy of the exhibit’s big TV screens and fascinating visual displays. Most of history’s colossal weather events are represented here, from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (which left 450,000 homeless) to the 2004 tsunami in Thailand and last year’s devastating tornado in Greensburg, Kansas. Headlines, artifacts, letters, audio, video and images let you move through history and hear the voices of victims. There’s more, though. You will also learn how science is helping us prepare for natural events of mass destruction. You can view a cross-section of a pine tree that tells, through a lack of isotopes, when hurricanes happened in the past. You can learn how experts monitor world volcanoes, how severity ratings were developed and how and why people “hunt” hurricanes and tornadoes. You can find out more about global warming and how warmer air and sea temperatures might have the potential to cause more chaos. More than that, you can discover how you can protect yourself in case of extreme weather events. This is a text-heavy exhibit more interesting for older children and adults, although younger ones will still enjoy the interactive portions and the many video screens interspersed throughout. Expect to spend anywhere from 10 minutes to one hour inside, depending on your family’s level of interest. “Nature Unleashed: Inside Natural Disasters” continues through Sunday, January 4. The Field Museum of Chicago always features captivating exhibits, including Sue, the most complete Tyrannosaurus ever found, and the Crown Family Playlab, which lets kids grind up corn in a pueblo, play drum music and dig up dinosaur bones. Explore the ancient Americas, learn about evolution and DNA or check out the temporary exhibit “Mythic Creatures,” which is on display through September 1. The Field Museum is located at 1400 S. Lake Shore drive in Chicago. Basic admission is $14 for adults, $11 for seniors and students and $9 for kids aged 4-11. Call 312-922-9410 for additional information.
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Humans have always been fascinated by natural disasters—their strength, beauty and destructiveness. Great forces like earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes exhibit the dramatic majesty of Mother Nature, but also remind us how helpless we really are in the face of their power. Now, you can learn about these forces through a new exhibit at the Field Museum, “Nature Unleashed: Inside Natural Disasters.”