Think there's nothing you can take your kids to see that's fun, educational -- and free? Think again.

Brigham Young University in Provo has four museums where you can spend the day with your children and not spend a fortune. None charges admission, although all would be happy to accept donations.And, depending on the ages of your children and where their interests lie, chances are you can find something that will interest both the kids and their parents.

Just-turned-9 twins Hillary and Jonathon accompanied their Dad to Provo a few days ago to check out BYU's Museum of Peoples and Cultures, Earth Science Museum, Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum and the Museum of Art.

BYU MUSEUM OF PEOPLES AND CULTURES: We started our morning here, where it took almost as long to find somewhere to park as it did to go through the exhibits. (Located at 700 N. 100 East, the streets are crowded with residents and commuting BYU students.) But it was a pleasant little three-block walk, if only I'd remembered exactly where I parked.

The small exhibit space ("This is a short museum," Jonathon said) is devoted to anthropological artifacts from around the world -- mostly prehistoric Utah, the American Southwest, Mesoamerica and Polynesia. It offers self-guided tours or guided tours by appointment only.

The artifacts themselves range from pottery to clothing to musical instruments and more. Whether 9-year-olds can really appreciate the antiquity of the items is doubtful, however. Looking at a child's turkey-feather blanket that is at least 1,300 and perhaps as much as 2,100 years old, Hillary exclaimed, "Oh, it's kind of ruined."

But a short discussion later, she did sort of get the gist. A small doll of sorts -- a human figure made of plant fiber and wrapped in camelid textiles (circa 1000-1450) caught her eye, and seeing how old it was, Hillary said, "I'm amazed it isn't broken."

But while the kids were interested, they weren't overly interested. ("Oooh, that looks like our tree," Hillary said of the silk ficus sitting next to one of the exhibits.)

If you've got more time -- and, perhaps, your kids are a little older -- the museum provides fun quizzes and lessons.

BYU EARTH SCIENCE MUSEUM: Predictably, the kids are a good deal more excited upon their arrival here -- after all, the place is full of dinosaur bones!

And, while it's also not particularly large, there are some great exhibits featuring assembled skeletons of various extinct reptiles and ice-age mammals. (The giant ground sloth is amazing.) And there are individual dinosaur bones of enormous size.

(Sort of makes you wish BYU had a museum where it could house all of its extensive dinosaur collection.)

You can borrow a book that leads you through a self-guided tour, and it's a pretty kid-friendly place -- there is even an exhibit where the kids are encouraged to touch things like a mammoth tusk, fossil fish, seashell, brontosaurus vertebra, turtle shell and fossilized bird tracks. And there's a window where you can look in on students and/or professors working on preparing fossils.

And, thank goodness, Jonathon's greatest desire comes true when we find some fossilized bones of a Utahraptor. "Look at those claws!" I said.

"That's why it's one of the most ferocious animals that ever lived," he said.

It's always nice for kids to have the opportunity to demonstrate to their parents how much they know.

"Do you know why they call it the Utahraptor?" Jonathon asked.

"Because they found it in Utah, and it's a raptor," I reply. "How dumb do you think I am?"

"Ummm, not very," replied Jonathon.

Oh, and there's plenty of parking here. "At least we didn't lose the car," said Hillary.

MONTE L. BEAN LIFE SCIENCE MUSEUM: You had to know the children were going to like this one as well -- it's filled with "stuffed" animals, as they put it.

The large museum is almost a temple of taxidermy -- there's everything from lions and tigers and bears (oh, my!) to fish to foul. It's not like being at the zoo, but kids can get up close and personal with a wide variety of animals.

Of course, you have to explain to them how all of these animals ended up in the museum. Which may lead them in a direction you weren't quite expecting.

"I saw a little place where it might have been shot," Jonathon said, looking at one of the exhibits.

There are a few live animals -- salamanders and horned frogs and such -- but the museum consists mostly of formerly living things, including moose, elk, goats, ducks, eagles, owls, marlins, hammerhead sharks, rhinos, zebras, bugs, baboons and, of course, cougars. (This is BYU, after all.) Some of the animals are displayed individually, others are in diorama-like exhibits of eco-systems. There are displays on endangered species and vanishing wetlands, the Yellowstone fires of 1988 and how life develops. The kids can actually learn a few things without realizing it's a learning experience.

Not that all their questions are easy to answer. "Is that a real tongue?" Jonathon asked.

And there's plenty of room for fun, like discussing whether that warthog over there is Timon or Pumba. And, for even more fun, you can tell the kids you saw one of the exhibits move. (Hillary denies it, but she believed me.)

BYU MUSEUM OF ART: After a break for lunch, it was on to our fourth and final museum -- the impressive Museum of Art.

More impressive to Dad than it was to the twins, however.

Oh, they put up a brave front, trying desperately to sound interested in an exhibit titled "150 Years of American Paintings, 1794-1944," but it was mostly an act for Dad.

One of the few paintings that really caught their attention had more to do with Disney than with fine art -- it was an oil-on-canvas from 1870 by Victor Mehlig titled "Pocahontas and John Smith." And it was the clothing, or lack thereof, that caught Hillary's eye.

"Where's Pocahontas' top?" she asked with no small degree of embarrassment for the figure in the painting.

It was, of course, the end of what was beginning to turn into a long day. And the kids were much more interested in the sculptures and water fountains outside the building than the oil paintings inside. (And, even though it was half their lives ago, they were more interested in the Chinese art exhibit that was in the building the last time they were there.)

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But for the kids, it would probably have been better to start with the art museum before moving on to the dinosaurs and animals.

"It was OK," said Jonathon, apparently trying to please his father. "Kind of boring."

"I liked the stuffed-animal one better," Hillary added.

You can reach Scott D. Pierce by e-mail at pierce@desnews.com

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