The Pentacrest Museums hosted a group of 40 students ranging from pre-K to 7th grade from the Mid Prairie School District this morning, splitting the visitors up into 2 groups of 20 who took turns on tours between the Old Capitol Museum and the Museum of Natural History. That's a whole lotta fun and a whole lotta history!

We welcome more than 8,000 school children visiting our museums annually -- doorways to discovery, indeed! For many we are their first visit to a museum or our great university. Shaping their ideas on how they can participate in science, history, art, and higher education is an honor.

Seth Moffitt lead today's groups on their tour of Old Cap, highlighting our state's history, and the artifacts and spaces of the grand building. "I seriously love my job! And giving tours is the best part of this job," Seth told us, "In my opinion, teaching history is the best way to help shape the future."

Seth is one of many University of Iowa student docents staffing our museums, many of whom are in the Museum Studies Certificate program. The university has offered courses for museum professionals since 1911 and these students have significantly shaped the museums here on campus and beyond, within their field.

Our students are knowledgeable, kind, and will be graduating with real experience in real museums as tour guides, events coordinators, educational programming designers, specimen preparators, exhibit preparators, archival researchers, communications experts, collections professionals and much more. They're amazing.

Check our websites to learn more about how to make reservations for your guided group tour of one of our museums today (free for students!) and come see for yourself just what our museums - and the students that make us - have to offer.