Bell Museum Focuses In With Sensory Friendly Saturdays

Exploring nature, science, and the sensory friendly movement at the UMN’s own Bell Museum

By Ian Knoll

Cockroaches and mammoths. The molecular building blocks of organisms, and the search for life amongst the stars. Glacial ice ages and a warming globe. The origins of the universe and the era of man. When it comes to the natural sciences, the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum has it all. 

Almost too much, in fact. During normal hours, the museum is packed with visitors jostling and chatting as they migrate between exhibits, each of which often comes with its own set of animal ambience, narration, or attention-grabbing effects. There’s a palpable sense of excitement, sure, but it’s hard to deny it can distract even the most stoic attendant, let alone those with sensory sensitivities. But if you’re looking for a calmer environment一and are willing to get up early一the Bell Museum has you covered with Sensory Friendly Saturdays.

First, a bit more about the Bell Museum. Situated on the St. Paul Campus, the museum touts itself as “Minnesota’s official natural history museum and planetarium.” While the latter was out of order when I visited, I can confirm it certainly lives up to the former. Exhibits include the permanent Minnesota Journeys, which traces the past, present, and future of Minnesota’s varied biomes through a series of dioramas (the most famous being their woolly mammoth), capturing the essence of various real world locations in Minnesota. Later, the exhibit discusses how our impact has irrevocably changed this intricate ecosystem and how we’re trying to better understand and treat our state. Somewhat contradictory, the series also includes “Life in the Universe,” which beautifully details the atomic and energetic foundation of our reality, its progression, and the trials and insights in our journey to find other life. Alongside these, the museum currently features a display of seminal nature painter John James Audobon’s “The Birds of America” and the natural art it inspired, and the “Touch and See Lab”, which gives kids an opportunity to directly interact with the nature around them through live bug and reptile displays, animal remain collections, and various activities. The museum isn’t particularly rigorous in its material (there is a clear leaning toward children), but even for adults it provides an engrossing overview of the world around us.

What, then, does it mean to be sensory friendly? The movement largely began as a means to make public events more accessible for individuals on the autism spectrum or with sensory processing disorder, for whom sensory information is often processed differently and in ways that make it easy to become overwhelmed. Sensory friendly events aim to help by reducing stimuli through a number of means: smaller crowds, quieter atmosphere, soft lighting, and less sudden changes to visual or auditory stimuli—just to name a few. It’s grown to include adapted setups for museums, theme parks, films, concerts, and even sports events, and continues to be an important step to a more inclusive society.

For the Bell Museum, this translates to the once a month Sensory Friendly Saturdays, where the museum opens two hours earlier with fewer crowds and an altered, serene environment. It means dimmed lights, drawn shades, and a quiet room for those who need to get away. It means trading sounds for subtitles, removing animal ambience like wolf howls and bird calls from dioramas, and turning off the more intensive visual interactions. And it means offering weighted lap pads, fidgets, hearing protection, and ALDs (Assistive Listening Devices). And, although still open to the public, it means smaller (around twenty person) crowds. These changes are minor, hardly ruining or altering the overall museum experience, but they can mean opening up a world of possibilities for those who normally struggle with sensory overload. 

I’ll be clear—I can by no means speak for people with such challenges. Even as a normal museum goer, though, I can feel personal benefits. The quiet, dim setting and small crowds gives one the space to not only absorb the knowledge around you, but to reflect on it, too. As a museum dedicated to the mission of immersing yourself in the natural world, that’s a great boon, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed when the shades came up, the crowds rolled in, and the wolf diorama next to me starting howling (that one I just don’t get in any context.) That peaceful environment gave me the chance to reflect not just on the nature around me, but also on what it means to be inclusive and accepting of those with autism and sensory processing disorders. The conclusion? Sensory friendly events are here to stay, and I couldn’t be more happy about it.

For more on the Bell Museum, check out: bellmuseum.umn.edu