Learning through looking, touching and discovering

At The Creature Cabinet, I believe that some of the best learning happens when you can actually see and handle something for yourself.

Books, photographs and videos are fantastic resources, but there is something completely different about being able to examine a real animal structure up close. My educational collection has been created to make natural history more interactive, accessible and memorable, particularly for children and people who may not have had many opportunities to experience these things first-hand.

The collection includes a growing range of responsibly sourced natural history materials, including animal sheds and moults, pinned insects, feathers, porcupine quills, owl pellets and other fascinating specimens.

🦋 Real specimens

One of the most exciting parts of the collection is being able to show people the things animals leave behind.

Sheds and moults can demonstrate how an animal grows and replaces its outer covering. Feathers provide an opportunity to explore bird anatomy, flight and identification. Insect specimens allow people to look closely at structures that are often far too small to appreciate when the animal is alive.

Even something as simple as a porcupine quill can open up conversations about defence, adaptation and the incredible ways animals have evolved to survive.

Where possible, materials are obtained responsibly and ethically, with a strong preference for naturally shed, moulted or otherwise ethically sourced specimens.

🪲 Learn by doing

The Cabinet also includes interactive educational activities, including cartoon illustrations of different insects and other small creatures with removable Velcro labels.

Instead of simply looking at a diagram with all of the answers already provided, learners can identify features themselves and place the correct labels where they belong.

These activities can cover things such as:

• Identifying different body parts

• Understanding insect anatomy

• Matching names to structures

• Learning about adaptations

• Comparing different species

• Exploring the differences between animal groups

The aim is to make learning feel more like exploration than a lesson.

🔎 Look closer

One of the biggest things I hope to encourage through The Creature Cabinet is curiosity.

A feather becomes an opportunity to ask which bird did this come from?

A moult becomes how did this animal grow?

An insect becomes why does its body look like that?

An owl pellet becomes what can we discover about the owl's diet?

A quill becomes why would an animal evolve something like this?

Those questions are where meaningful learning begins.

Making natural history accessible

I want The Creature Cabinet to help people develop an appreciation for the natural world regardless of their previous knowledge or experience.

You don't need to be an entomologist to be fascinated by an insect. You don't need to be a birdwatcher to appreciate a beautiful feather. You don't need to be a zoologist to wonder what is hidden inside an owl pellet.

Sometimes, all it takes is the opportunity to stop, look closely and ask "What is this?"

And that's exactly what these materials are here to encourage.

See it. Touch it. Question it. Understand it.

The natural world is full of stories — sometimes, the evidence is left behind for us to discover.