National Museum of Natural History Unearthed

Museum Madness 2012 @NMNH - Results of the Division Finals!

From the thirty-two contenders that began on March 21st, you've narrowed the field down to four division champions. Thank you for your enthusiastic responses and support of the objects about which you want to learn more!

Highlights:

While it breezed past the Hope Diamond in Round 1 and the Monarch Butterfly in Round 2, the Bull Mummy just couldn't move past Titanoboa in Round 3. The Deep-Sea Vent Worms, meanwhile, continued their winning streak as your votes helped them to a victory over the Wood Collection.

 

Your Division Champs are ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who are you pulling for in Round 3? Voting will open later this afternoon, and we'll need your help to narrow the field from 4 to 2!

Sarah Banks, Audience Engagement Specialist, Office of Education and Outreach

Museum Madness 2012 @NMNH

Not a basketball fan? Feeling left out of the March Madness fun? Wishing there was a bracket that incorporated your interests in birds, mammals, insects, fishes, and more?

We have the solution for you! It’s called ...

Museum Madness is our version of the basketball tournament - with a twist. Instead of teams competing, we have objects vying for your interest. Would you like to learn more about our iconic elephant or a species of fish thought to have died out with the dinosaurs? Over the next two weeks, you decide what will advance through the rounds and reign victorious.

So who are the contenders?

In the Backbones Division we have ...

1. Fenykovi Elephant
2. Martha the Passenger Pigeon
3. Snarge
4. Roosevelt Rhinos
5. Phoenix, the North Atlantic Right Whale
6. X-ray of a Seahorse
7. Coelacanth
8. Great White Shark

In the Classics Division we have ...

1. Basilosaurus
2. Burgess Shale Fossils
3. Tasmanian Tiger
4. T-Rex
5. Megalodon Jaws
6. Neanderthal from Shanidar
7. Lucy, Our Early Human Ancestor (reconstruction)
8. Turtle Skeleton

In the Exhibit All-Stars Division we have ...

1. Hope Diamond
2. Easter Island Stone Figure
3. Monarch Butterfly
4. Bull Mummy
5. Tarantula
6. Titanoboa
7. Korean Bridal Gown
8. Giant Squid

In the Wild Cards Division we have ...

1. Allende Meteorite
2. Smithsonite
3. Deep-Sea Vent Worms
4. Handaxe Made by Early Humans
5. Wood Collection
6. Scarab Beetle
7. Invertebrates from the Gulf of Mexico
8. Modern Human Art and Music

How do you vote and follow the action?

Starting Tuesday, March 20th, keep an eye open where you follow us - Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest - for links to the voting pages.

Sarah Banks, Audience Engagement Specialist, Office of Education and Outreach

 

Let's Talk about Race at the Smithsonian - Family Day at the Anacostia Community Museum

On October 22, 2011, the Anacostia Community Museum (ACM) presented “Who AM I” and “I’ve Got To Be Me” as part of the Let’s Talk about Race at the Smithsonian family day programs. ACM’s offerings—centering around race, family, and self—joined similar ones provided by other Smithsonian organizations at the National Museum of Natural History.  

The day began at the museum with “Who AM I,” a presentation on family history research for children and their families. Historian Maria Goodwin led the group in a discussion on how easy it is to obtain and record important events in a person’s life. With assistance from their parents, children began to construct their family trees. Children, guided by a free Precious Memories workbook, also began to document their own lives. It was suggested that a good place to start is with family fun times. A sentiment shared by most was reflected in the comment, “I was very informed and plan to give [all of] my children this important information.”

Later, as part of the “I’ve Got To Be Me“ program, master storyteller and griot Baba-C offered a variety of tales about race, some from his own experience. Topics of discussion included the richness of diversity and attitudes on race and cultural differences. The afternoon session resulted in a lively exchange of storytelling and self-awareness.  

 

Robert L. Hall, Associate Director of Education, Anacostia Community Museum

Image caption and credit: Brian Carson and son Khaliq learn about family history at the Anacostia Community Museum.  Photograph by Robert L. Hall

Visitors React to the August 23rd Earthquake

After the earthquake last Tuesday, staff in the Office of Education and Outreach reached out to visitors in various ways to encourage learning and dialogue. Since I am from Peru originally and have experienced a 8.0 magnitude earthquake, I wanted also to engage with our visitors and to learn about their experiences.

On August 24th, I spent some time in the Museum's Rotunda with comment cards and two questions:  Where were you during the earthquake? and What would you like to know about the earthquake?  This was a wonderful opportunity to talk with families and children. Many visitors had never experienced an earthquake before and were really surprised about this event.  Some were visiting museums around the Mall, some kids were in the classroom, a few of the visitors were in their cars on their way to DC, and one of our visitors was sailing in the middle of the ocean.  I was impressed about how much young children know about earthquakes and how they happen. During our conversations, interesting questions came up, such as: Did the earthquake damage any exhibits? How does the museum check? Why was the earthquake felt so far away? What is the closest fault line and what is its name, what kind of fault is it? What type of wave is stronger?  How many aftershocks are usually there after an earthquake?

To see the complete set of comment cards from our visitors, click here.

Maria del Carmen Cossu, Program Coordinator for Against All Odds: Rescue at the Chilean Mine, Office of Education and Outreach 

Image captions and credits: Comment cards created by visitors to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History on August 24, 2011. Images courtesy of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

A Crocheted Coral Reef in Davenport, Iowa?!

A crocheted coral reef in Davenport, Iowa?!  Yes, the Putnam Museum and IMAX Theater is borrowing the Smithsonian Community Reef  and installing it near the live coral reef tank in their Ocean Experience gallery.  It will be on view starting August 26.

We here at the Natural History Museum are thrilled, because it means that this spectacular crocheted piece – created out of 4,000 contributions by over 800 participants and assembled by 88 volunteers who donated 8,500 hours of their time – will be on public view for another five years.  While it’s on display, the Putnam will incorporate the reef into programs that teach thousands of school-aged visitors about the importance of ocean conservation.

We’re excited that the important messages of the reef will reach brand new audiences at the Putnam and hope that the reef continues to inspire awe and awareness of the beauty and the fragility of coral reefs around the world.  And we hope that the Smithsonian Community Reef’s many contributors and fans will go visit their old friend in Davenport.

The Smithsonian Community Reef is a satellite of the worldwide Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project created by Margaret and Christine Wertheim of the Institute For Figuring in Los Angeles.  It was made possible by the Quiksilver Foundation, the Embassy of Australia, and the Coral Reef Alliance.

 

Barbara Stauffer, Chief of Temporary Exhibitions, Exhibitions

 

Image caption and credit: Visitors viewing the Smithsonian Community Reef while it was on display at the National Museum of Natural History; Image courtesy of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

The Locker Project Comes to NMNH

Visitors to RACE: Are We So Different? at NMNH will see creative collaborations of a very personal nature: a set of four lockers, each holding an art installation made by students from DC schools.

Lockers like these have been a part of the RACE traveling exhibition since it debuted at the Science Museum of Minnesota in 2007. The originals were made by students in St. Paul, but when planning for the exhibition's time here, we saw the lockers as an opportunity to highlight the talents of local students. With the help of schools, teachers, and parents, we reached out to four schools to ask them to create new lockers.

Each team began by reflecting on the same questions: What is race? What does race mean to you? Has your life been affected by race? Even for students immersed in the multicultural life of the District of Columbia, these were challenging questions.

A video in the exhibition says that “race” is a short word with a long history in the USA. Zainya Carter of CentroNia agrees, and thinks that this history is one thing that makes race tough to talk about now. “When you hear ‘race,’ at first, you don’t know what to say,” she notes. And trying to figure it out by yourself might not help much. “If you’re just one person working on it, you would have biases and certain ways of thinking that might create a one-sided view,” said Tessa Thomas of Bell Multicultural High School. Working with teachers, advisors, and other students gave each team the ability to create a unified response.

But they had to work hard to achieve that unity. It took time to create an artwork that would flow from each student’s contribution, but also represent a vision that came from the whole team. “The decision-making process—deciding what we wanted to put in the locker and what we wanted the locker to represent—was both my favorite part and the hardest part,” said Olivia Johnson of the School Without Walls. Deja Rinehart of Kimball Elementary School put it very eloquently: “When you talk about it, it’s easy. But when you do it, it’s really hard!” Students from all four teams agreed with her.

The students drew strength from their belief that art has a role to play in national conversations. “Art can be your own documentary,” said Dennis Lazo of CentroNia. Diana Castillo of Bell thinks that people should know that art is a universal resource for making sense of the world. Even if “they tell me that they don’t have the talent to make art, I think that every person can draw or paint or make a ceramic piece,” she says. Moreover, working as part of an artistic team builds a kind of unity that can translate to our whole society. Zainya Carter believes that her CentroNia team “wanted to show people that we do work together, and we can all create a great idea or a great project.” “Everyone should see the lockers,” Jahni Threatt from School Without Walls insisted, because they will help them understand the world in a very personal way.

From the teachers’ point of view, the lockers have a clear set of messages. “People need to step out of thinking about themselves with a word—are you white, are you black, are you this, are you that,” said School Without Walls teacher Marni Leiken. CentroNia’s Director of Youth Programs, Kimberly Gaines, thinks that visitors will understand the lockers’ unifying statements. “We’re closer-knit than we actually think. We are more similar than we are dissimilar,” she believes. Bell art teacher Mandy McCullough thinks of her students’ problem-solving abilities as one of their greatest strengths, and that gives her great hope for the future. Kimball art teacher Eugene Foster feels the same way, and sees the lockers as a promising sign: “When they put together ideas like this, I think we’re going to be okay. And it feels amazing.”

RACE: Are We So Different? will be on view at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History from June 18, 2011 to January 2, 2012.

David D. LaCroix, Programming and Volunteer Training Coordinator, Office of Education and Outreach

 Image captions (top to bottom): Brenda Pérez adds a detail to the School Without Walls locker, as teammates Olivia Johnson, Adrian Espinola and Jahni Threatt look on; Flor Rivas, Mauricio Ventura, and Nelson Cruz of the CentroNia team get a little help with the installation of their artwork from Kim Moeller of the NMNH Exhibits staff (in blue sweater); Two members of the Bell Multicultural High School team, Moshood Salu and Tessa Thomas, assemble their locker; Members of the Kimball Elementary School team at work on their locker, titled “Flush the Foolishness”: Carl Goins, Michaela Brown, and Deja Rinehart.

All photographs by C. Chen, Smithsonian Institutional National Museum of Natural History

Fossil Hunting under the Watchful Eyes of Lions

The Museum’s fossil preparation facility, FossiLab, recently received a shipment of dinosaur fossils from northern Zimbabwe.  They were collected last year by an international team of scientists, including NMNH Dinosaur Curator Matt Carrano.

The fossils, still largely encased in rock, are of two types of dinosaur.  One, a small, primitive meat eater closely related to Coelophysis, was a member of the dinosaur group that eventually gave rise to huge predators like T. rex.  These fossils were found in a “bone bed,” a place where the fossil remains of many individuals are mixed together.  Coelophysis fossils have been found in other bone beds, most famously at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, and the new discovery may help scientists answer questions such as whether Coelophysis and related species lived in groups, and what events led to the death and burial of so many animals at once.  The other Zimbabwean dinosaur is a prosauropod, a medium-sized plant eater that had a large claw on its thumb, a long neck, and leaf-shaped teeth for chopping plant matter.  They seem to have been quite common at a time when the local environment was desert, and researchers wonder why.

The scientists discovered the fossils in a river canyon.  During the rainy season, water courses through the canyon eroding its rock walls and uncovering fossils.  Then, when the rains stop, the riverbed dries up and becomes a convenient path for scientists prospecting for newly exposed fossils – and for lions and elephants traveling through the bush.

Paleontologists are friendly, as a rule, but prospecting can be solitary work.  Team members often spread out to cover as much territory as possible, and as they walk slowly along searching for fossils, they sometimes become oblivious to everything around them.  Obviously, this is not the smartest behavior when large, possibly dangerous animals are nearby, so the team hired a local wildlife guide to keep them out of trouble.  He coached them on what not to do when charged by lions (run), or elephants (stand still) and kept them bunched together in the relative safety of a “herd” as they prospected in the canyon.

The scientists found the tracks of several big cats as they worked in the riverbed, but, to their relief, they came face to face with only one group of predators -- dinosaurs, all safely fossilized.

 Abby Telfer, FossiLab Manager, Paleobiology Department

Image captions and credits (top to bottom): At the Museum, a plaster and burlap field jacket holds a jumble of dinosaur fossils from the bone bed, including a jaw fragment with teeth (center). Photo by A. Telfer; Removing fossils from the canyon wall in Zimbabwe.  Photo by M. Carrano;  Leopard tracks in the dry riverbed. Photo by M. Carrano.

One Year Later: The Gulf Oil Spill

One year ago, an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico - endangering wildlife and ecosystems. Staff here at the Museum mobilized on the Museum floor and online to help visitors make sense of this event and its possible effects. Here are a few of these resources:

• EXPLORE: The Ocean Portal's Gulf Oil Spill section
• WATCH: Video interview with Dr. Chris Mah - Oil's Impact on Marine Invertebrates
• DOWNLOAD: Multi-layer, Google Earth-based overview of Deepwater Horizon incident from April 21 to August 5, 2010 and NMNH-IZ's Gulf of Mexico invertebrate holdings by BOEMRE study program
• DISCOVER: NMNH's invertebrate collections from the Gulf of Mexico

Left wondering where things stand today? Tune into tonight's webcasted panel discussion (click the flyer to the right for more information). If you can't watch tonight, keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter pages for a link to the archived video.

Sarah Banks, Audience Engagement Specialist, Education and Outreach

Tiny Fossils, Big Excitement

Visitors to FossiLab, the fossil preparation laboratory in the ancient life halls of the Museum, see work that normally goes on behind the scenes at museums.  They watch specially trained volunteers prepare fossils for scientific study, display, or storage in our enormous collections, and sometimes they witness exciting discoveries.

Most of the fossils we work on in FossiLab were found and excavated by Smithsonian paleobiologists (scientists who study ancient life), whose research takes them to remote places around the world.  When the packing crates containing their discoveries arrive in FossiLab, we pull out our tools and get to work.  Right now, we are cleaning T. rex foot bones, the skull of a brontothere (an extinct relative of horses and rhinos) embedded in a massive block of rock, and a couple of whale skulls.  Removing all the rock from these behemoths is interesting and fun, but we often wish we’d been there when the fossils were discovered -- wouldn’t it be cool to be the first person to see something that had been buried in the earth for millions of years!  That’s why we get so excited when we open a crate and find bags containing loose bits of broken-up rock, not “just another” T. rex bone.   The lumps of sedimentary rock, or “matrix,” offer a chance to make fossil discoveries right here at the Museum!

When scientists go out prospecting for fossils, erosion is their best friend.  Most of the “life” of a fossil is spent deep underground, encased in rock, and it is only after erosion slowly breaks apart the rock matrix covering it that a fossil can be discovered.  Scientists searching for the fossil remains of big animals walk along eroding hillsides and look for bones protruding from the earth or for telltale bone fragments at the bottom of a slope.  If they spot something that looks interesting, they remove the loose matrix and carefully trace the remains back into the hill, hoping to find more bone entombed in the rock.

But paleobiologists don’t always go for the big stuff.  All fossils provide important evidence about the history of life, ancient ecosystems and environments, and for some research, finding the fossils of tiny creatures becomes Job #1.  Prospecting for small fossils requires enormous patience and keen observation, and some people are really good at spotting bits of tiny bones and teeth eroding from the same outcrops that hold the fossils of larger animals. That is when shovels fill canvas bags with as much broken-up matrix as the scientists can carry, and crates full of matrix make their way to back to the Museum.

In FossiLab, we have time to do a more thorough search of the crumbling matrix.  We use a microscope so that we can see even the tiniest bones and teeth, and we don’t have to contend with the dripping sweat, too-bright sunshine, blowing dust, and cramped muscles that make it so difficult to spot small fossils out in the field.

Lately, we have been looking through matrix from Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, finding the pencil tip-sized teeth of very small reptiles, and even fragments of dinosaur teeth.  This matrix was collected last spring by Museum paleobiologist Dr. Kay Behrensmeyer and her colleagues. The goal of their expedition was to find fossils of mouse-sized early mammals and evidence of the environments where they lived during the Late Triassic Period, more than 200 million years ago. Although the area was once wet and green, there is no water there today.  The eroded badlands are so rugged, and the fossil-bearing rock outcrops so far from the road, that they had never been explored by paleontologists.  Kay’s team solved the challenge of setting up camp near the outcrops by hiring Navajo wranglers from a nearby ranch to transport their gear and water on pack horses and mules. The scientists prospected and collected on the outcrop for nearly a week, and when the wranglers returned to help them pack out, bags of matrix began the journey to FossiLab tied to the saddle of a strong black mustang.

Now, new bits of interesting teeth and bones turn up regularly under the FossiLab microscope, while Museum visitors follow the fossil search in real time on a large TV screen.  So far we’ve found no mammal fossils, but the other tiny teeth are providing lots of clues about life in Arizona during the Triassic – and the thrill of discovery at FossiLab.

Abby Telfer, FossiLab Manager, Paleobiology Department

Image captions and credits (top to bottom):  FossiLab volunteer Suzy McIntire projects the magnified image from her microscope as she hunts through matrix at the Museum (A. Telfer, photo); Petrified Forest Expedition team member Amelia Villaseñor searches the ground for small fossils (A.K. Behrensmeyer, photo); A minute tooth fragment discovered in FossiLab (S. McIntire, photo).

19th Annual Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital

The 19th Annual Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital runs from March 15–27, 2011. The National Museum of Natural History has been a Festival partner since 1993 when the Festival was founded. We are pleased to present the following films and programs at the Museum as part of the Festival:

Thursday, March 17
7:00pm in Baird Auditorium
Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie
Discussion with David Suzuki and director Sturla Gunnarsson follows the film. Book signing by David Suzuki concludes the evening.
 
Friday, March 18
7:00pm in Baird Auditorium
Lecture by E.O. Wilson focusing on his two recently published books, The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct and Kingdom of the Ants: José Celestino Mutis and the Dawn of American Natural History
Question and answer session and book signing by E.O. Wilson follows the lecture.
 
Saturday, March 19
12:15-4:45pm in Baird Auditorium
The Changing Sea
Mysteries of the Deep
America’s Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie
Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time

7:00pm in the Johnson IMAX Theater (tickets required – visit www.residentassociates.org to purchase)
Arabia 3D

Sunday, March 20
1:00-4:45pm in Baird Auditorium
Sky Island 
Ribbon of Sand
Islands in the Wind
Creating Synthetic Life
 
Saturday, March 26
12:00-5:00pm in Baird Auditorium
Winners from the 2010 Wildscreen Film Festival:
The Pack: Episode 5
Monkey Thieves: Searching for Sanctuary
The Coral Gardener
Green
How Earth Made Us: Deep Earth
The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos

Sunday, March 27
12:15-4:30pm in Baird Auditorium
America’s Wildest Refuge
Cuba: The Accidental Eden
Plan B: Mobilizing to Save Civilization
 
All programs are free and open to the public, except where noted. For specific screening times, descriptions, and panelists, visit www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org or www.mnh.si.edu/calendar.asp.