Educator resource illustration by Trish Roberts, 2016
Our selection of online resources allow you to access the Beaty Biodiversity Museum from anywhere around the globe!
In addition to Beaty resources, you will also find some of our favourite science and museum resources from UBC and beyond.
Online Resources Worksheet: If you’d like to be guided through many of these online resources, please visit our interactive, online worksheet for suggested uses and activities. If you prefer, you can access this worksheet as a PDF that you can print to write your thoughts on.
Online Public Programming
Join us for occasional online programming, featuring museum staff, artists, and special guests. Learn about biodiversity research, collections work, or take a tour of the museum. Find all of the dates, topics, and register on our calendar. Find our past Beaty@Home live sessions on our YouTube channel or facebook playlist, open to all!
Virtual Group Tours and Programs
If you’re teaching remotely, or looking for a virtual group tour, you can book a private Online Tour or Program! Explore our learn page for more information, and our booking information page for rates, times, and tech requirements.
- Book an Online Museums Collection tour and virtually explore the six collections that make up the museum: Tetrapods, Marine Invertebrates, Herbarium, Entomology, Fish, and Fossils. Discover stories about BC species, biodiversity research, and different specimens in the collection and how they relate to each other. This online tour is appropriate for all groups including elementary, secondary, post-secondary, families, friends, children’s and social groups.
- Beaty Boxes are available for schools to rent (must pick up from Vancouver, BC). In addition to our Beaty Boxes, you can book a guided program that explores Sketching (all ages) or Adaptations (grades 3-7) that works with your classroom Beaty Box.
- Groups of teachers can book a private Online Teacher Tour to learn about our digital exhibitions, resources, collections, programs, and more! This session is free of charge and appropriate for educators looking for a group development session.
Follow the Beaty on Social Media
Connect with us on social media for highlights, news, activities, and stories on biodiversity: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Flickr | YouTube
Enjoy our Virtual Exhibits
The Beaty features a wide range of online exhibits, featuring the Sturgeon Harpoon Knowledge Web, Researchers Revealed, and more. No downloads are needed for these great resources! You can even explore our whale station from your home computer. View more of our virtual exhibitions online.
Explore 100 Years, 100 Treasures in depth with an exhibition project (pdf) challenging students to create their own mini-exhibition featuring five of the 100 treasures.
Enjoy an audio tour or 360° virtual tour of the museum, using our online visitor guide (html) or printable visitor guide (pdf) to help navigate the museum. Explore our Flickr page, where we feature photography of the museum, past and present exhibitions, and events.
Search the Beaty’s Online Collection Databases
Discover hundreds of thousands of our specimens that are catalogued online. Find data to help support your research or curiosity. Many specimens also feature photos! Search different specimens by scientific names, places, collectors, dates, and more! In addition to our specimen database, you can explore photos of nearly every species in the Spencer Entomological Collection.
Learn about research happening at the museum and the Biodiversity Research Centre.
Watch Beaty Museum Videos
Enjoy Beaty videos on our YouTube channel, which highlight past talks, Researchers Revealed, informative shorts, and more! Our newest series, Backyard Biodiversity, explores common plants in the Vancouver area. If you want to watch Raising Big Blue, you can find it on Amazon Prime or Vimeo.
The Beaty Museum’s facebook video archives are accessible to all, even without a facebook account. Enjoy recordings of Beaty@Home livestreams and other great content!
Read our News and Stories
The Beaty’s News and Stories are posts that offer a different look into the Beaty. Read about the people, research, and news behind the museum!
Use our Educator Resources
There’s something for everyone! Many of our activities can be done at home or in your local park. Explore our resource pages for art, writing, research, and discovery-based activities appropriate for ages 5 and up. Use them for fun and education.
Hone your ID Skills at home!
Want to expand your identification skills? Use some of our favourite websites to help you learn about the organisms outside!
- Mushrooms Up! focuses on mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest
- Seaweed Sorter and Fish Sorter are friendly, UBC created apps to help you identify local seaweeds and fishes! Learn more about the Sorter apps here, available for Apple and Android devices.
- iNaturalist and Seek are wonderful apps to help log and identify organisms world-wide
- Share your photos with us on social media!
Visit UBC Museums and Galleries online!
We are so grateful to have myriad world-class museums, gardens, and galleries in our neighborhood at UBC. While you can’t visit in person, we encourage you to explore their online resources and plan your future visit!
- UBC is located on the ancestral, traditional, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. Take a moment to visit their website.
- Thank you to MOA for their wonderful blog post about #MOAFromHome which inspired us to put all of our online resources into one place. Visit their wonderful resources, including archives, tours, and resources on their post.
- The Pacific Museum of Earth features a virtual 360 degree tour of their main gallery. Visit their webpage for their virtual tour, online programs, podcasts, descriptions of their main exhibits, and educator resources.
- The UBC Botanical Gardens have wonderful resources online, including their Botany Photo of the Day and forums.
- The UBC Farm has news, updates on their markets, and growing tips.
- Learn about past and upcoming exhibitions at the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery. They have two self-guided outdoor booklets exploring outdoor art on campus and Musqueam House Posts.
- The UBC Libraries have many archives and online exhibits you can explore from home. There are even sets of colouring pages and online workshops!
- If you aren’t familiar with the University of British Columbia, you can explore the UBC Campus virtually. You can get a virtual taste of the UBC attractions all on one page.
Some of our favourite online resources:
- The UBC Faculty of Forestry have made an excellent playlist of videos about vertebrate wildlife in BC, using Beaty Biodiversity Museum and forestry specimens. Each one is just a few minutes and highlights important features of each group. Some groups include: canids, frogs and toads, bats, kingfishers, mustelids, and more!
To supplement the videos, explore these 3-dimensional skull models, uploaded by the WildCo lab. Note: there are other 3D models on this website, scroll through the page to find skulls with the Beaty Museum logo. - Physics & Astronomy has phenomenal physics activities online! Learn about machines, space, and more through their challenges.
- Find science, technology, engineering, arts, and math organizations in your community with STEAM Ecosystem BC! Expand each record to find out more information about organizations around the province.
- Engage with the Royal BC Museum at home, through resources, online exhibitions, and webinars.
- See all of UBC’s STEM Outreach organizations in one place.
- The Vancouver Aquarium has some great online content, including workshops and classes
- Email us if you have ideas for great resources we can add. Thank you!
Learn about the typewriter in the photo on our 100 Years, 100 Treasures exhibition: https://beatytreasures.com/post/126027415163/typewriter