Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

Today at noon we returned from a trip to my Dad’s home, and our visit to Penn State University’s Earth and Mineral Science Museum. Sometime in my youth I visited PSU’s Mineral Museum and google-eyed all the minerals and rocks. Vast displays of these ‘things’, all labeled and neatly displayed, so of course I thought of PSU as a place to take ScienceKid to help him prepare for his Rocks & Minerals NSO event.

Having driven to Penn State late Monday night, after SK’s SO partners left from their afternoon session of working on Mission Possible, we were ready to get going on our next mission. Early Tuesday morning we drove over to Penn State’s campus, parked in a garage, and walked over to Old Main.

Beautiful building but not where we were headed. After a bit of a walk we found Deike Building, and had 20 minutes to sit and gaze into the museum waiting for it to open. Thirty minutes later I asked in the main office if we were at the correct location, and this prompted the museum to be opened for us.

We walked in and searched the small space for the 22,000 specimens PSU’s web site states it has. Surely they would have 10% of them on exhibit…..OK, maybe 1% would be on exhibit…….maybe 0.1% of them out……..We looked at the half-dozen quartz samples they had on display before moving to the Geo-Wall. SK played with the Geo-Wall, a 3-D, interactive tool to examine mineral crystal structures. He was enjoying himself and finally our guide, Dr. Graham showed up. He quickly explained how the Geo-Wall worked—-we weren’t interested in that, we wanted to see rocks and minerals, after-all this was a Mineral Science Museum. Their web site stated that it was:

“a unique mineral museum. Our main gallery display includes displays of fine minerals such as azurite and ‘velvet’ malachite from Bisbee, Arizona, and amazonite crystasl from the Pikes’ Peak, CO, area….. Many of these specimens are on display………Also, the Museum houses the world’s most extensive collection of mineral properties exhibits. These “push-button” electro-mechanical exhibits demonstrating dozens of the electrical, optical, and physical properties of minerals and materials such as fluorescence, radioactivity, magnetism, conductivity, flexibility, triboluminescence, piezoelectricity, double refraction, resistivity, and much more….”

But no, as Dr. Graham explained to us, the museum does not have rocks and minerals on exhibit. It doesn’t have what its website states as having. They are now an Earth-Science Museum and as such they do not have minerals out on exhibit. I felt the need to scream. Yes, they did have lots and lots of rocks and minerals in their previous museum but not now, now those are in storage, ….someplace…. We left, walked back to the car and returned to my Dad’s home. On the bright side we would have more time to visit with my Dad.

The afternoon was spent visiting with Dad while the boys watched a movie; neither know really how to interact with the other. I knew I could force the issue, force the boys to ask questions of Dad, but they’ve gotten tired of doing that. I let them be. My sis and her dh came over for dinner….. early this morning we packed the car and headed back to Delaware.

If you are looking for a great, little known mineral museum check out University of Delaware’s Mineral Museum. Great specimens, and great folks who are willing to share their knowledge and answer kids questions.

If you are looking for first rate ice cream, visit PSU. Their creamery is tops, at least they got one thing right.