Oswego museum features indoor-outdoor exhibit on pollinators

The Little White School Museum in Oswego unveiled its newest exhibit, “Pollinators on the Prairie: Little Helpers, Big Results.”

The exhibit features content both inside the museum and on the museum grounds – Heritage Park – that is both educational and thought-provoking. It encourages interactivity through games, quizzes and discussion points.

Along with artifacts and documents from the museum’s collections, exhibit materials were provided by the Paly Foundation, an Arizona-based organization dedicated to increasing awareness of endangered species, and Benedictine University’s Jurica-Suchy Nature Museum.

There’s been a lot of buzz around the importance of bees, and their population is in decline, but that news is just the tip of the pollinator iceberg. A wide variety of animals and insects, from bats to birds to bees to butterflies, help plants reproduce and create fruit, nuts and seeds.

In this exhibit, you can learn about the diversity of pollinators and how they contribute to our quality of life by helping to provide good food, gorgeous surroundings, medicines, even clothing.

The exhibit includes outdoor panels mounted along the museum’s Heritage Garden walking path, telling the story of pollinators and their importance to everyone’s food supply. Visitors are invited to see if they can spot the bee trap installed by Oswego beekeeper Chris Lieser that is nestled in one of the museum’s garden areas. Anyone can access more content by scanning the QR code on the last panel of the exhibit.

Inside the museum’s Roger Matile Room, other exhibits explain more of the pollinators’ story. Did you know honey bees are not native to North America? Or that in 1939, bee colonies on 26 Kendall County farms produced more than 9,000 pounds of honey?

Admission to “Pollinators on the Prairie: Little Helpers, Big Results” is free. The outdoor exhibit is open from dawn to dusk. The indoor exhibit is open during regular museum hours: 1 to 5:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; 4 to 9 p.m. Mondays. The museum is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

The Little White School Museum is a joint project of the Oswegoland Heritage Association and the Oswegoland Park District. Heritage Garden and the gardens surrounding the museum are maintained by the Hilltop Garden Club.

For information, visit the museum’s website at littlewhiteschoolmuseum.org or call 630-554-2999.