National Museum of Natural History Unearthed

Teens at the Intersection of Design and Science

The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) recently served up an interesting challenge for local students—design mobile education “carts” for our new state-of-the-art Education Center, currently under construction here at NMNH.

The students, part of the National Building Museum’s Design Apprenticeship Program (DAP), are involved in a seven-week course in which students learn about design by designing and planning a product and then building it. For the last 11 years, the program has been giving middle and high school teens a chance to learn about designing, building, working as a team, and working for a client. 

To be successful in their building design, the students learned about what kind of work is conducted at the National Museum of Natural History. DAP students met with scientists, educators, volunteers, and exhibits staff from the museum to learn about how and what NMNH scientists study, how science information is conveyed, and how the museum uses carts to give visitors an up-close view of objects and conduct demonstrations.

Supporting the program’s core values of teamwork, research, and peer communication, the DAP students met with NMNH’s Youth Advisory Board (YAB). YAB, a group of local teens working with NMNH to develop new ways to communicate science to their peers, provided the DAP students a perspective from other teens on what happens at NMNH and gave them an opportunity to exchange ideas.

Exposing the students to both museums has played a real role in helping students understand the intersection between design and science. “Design and science are interconnected. Design is all about how people perceive something, to the point that it really is a science…” said Vangie Hakes, a DAP teen.

“And in science, design is really apparent. Everything in the universe, whether it's natural or man-made, is designed in a certain way, to serve a certain purpose. The way a thing works is based on its design.”

Since NMNH is in the midst of building its new education center, the design project has been very timely. The new education center will be a 10,000-square-foot space designed for students, families, teachers, and life-long learners to get up-close to the science behind the science at the National Museum of Natural History.  Visitors will be able to handle and learn about 20,000 collection objects, attend lectures and events in a new theatre, and participate in activities in the classroom.

The new space will house activities focused on thousands of collection objects, education programs, and public programs that are designed to be happening simultaneously. The complexity of the Education Center space and program design is an important project component for the students to better understand how their education cart design will fit into the bigger picture.

Stepping up to the design challenge, DAP students understood that integration of the Education Center design was critical in creating a successful product. “This program teaches us how to listen to other ideas, patience, and compromise.  At DAP I learned more cooperation skills and mixing skills meaning taking my ideas and the ideas of others, mixing them together to make one big design,” observed DAP student Taylor Hicks.

The collaborative effort between the two museums and their youth programs not only taught the students about design and building, but it also helped the students understand the value of communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.

“Working with the actual client and meeting their needs really helps see what would happen in the real world because you have certain specifications you need to meet and if you don’t, they won’t be satisfied,” says DAP student Sumaiyah Liggans.

The collaboration between the National Building Museum and the National Museum of Natural History has been a successful pilot project.  The DAP students are continuing to learn about design and building, while serving real community needs. Students from each of the Museum’s teen programs are also learning how transferrable their new skills are between the building and science disciplines.

On Saturday, April 28, 2012, from 1-3 pm, the National Building Museum will host a reception where the teens will present their prototypes. The event is free and open to the public, with refreshments after the presentations are complete. Come out to the National Building Museum to help these students celebrate their accomplishments. 

Maggy Benson, Partnerships Manager, Office of Education & Outreach

 

Editor’s Note: DAP is open to 12-18 year old students in the Washington, DC metro region.  There are two, seven-week semesters of the program per year, held in the fall and spring. Registration information for the DAP program is available on the National Building Museum’s website.

 

Images: Design Apprenticeship Program students work as a team to design and build mobile education “carts” for the National Museum of Natural History’s new Education Center. The students worked closely with National Museum of Natural History staff to understand how the mobile education “carts” would be used, to better inform their design and prototype, seen here being built. All images courtesy of the National Building Museum.

Winter Break Interns 2012 - Michelle Daniel

Where are you from and what brings you to the Museum?

I come from Toronto, Canada, where I study Forest Conservation and Environmental Biology at the University of Toronto. Travelling to DC meant more than escaping the cold weather! I was drawn in by the excitement of the national museum environment and the opportunity to contribute to a project and an institution that is nationally and internationally meaningful. Interning at the Museum gave me the chance to combine what I have learned in my classes with participating in real research projects.

How did you get "Behind those Doors?"

I heard about the Winter Internship program a few months ago and kept a close watch on the website until the projects were posted in October. It was hard to choose just one! I applied to the Conservation of Bureau of Land Management's Botanical Voucher Collection project, which sounded exciting and likely a good fit for my interests. Once I contacted my staff sponsor, Andrew Clark, we were able to discuss the project further, and he and other NMNH staff made the rest of the process easy.  Soon the paperwork was complete, my flight was booked, and I was on my way!  

What is it you're doing back there, behind those doors?

I came to help with a project called Seeds of Success. Plant specimens and seed have been collected from all over the country to organize a seed bank (housed in Alaska) and a collection of the specimens as vouchers, which are joining the herbarium colelction at the Museum. While I was visiting, we started using the database that will enable us to organize the collection and the information we have about the specimens. This will allow scholars and land management professionals to study the specimens and to use them as vouchers to access seeds in the future for regeneration and other initiatives.

In addition to those directly associated with the Seeds of Success project, I had the opportunity to explore the collection and participate in many of the aspects and functions of the herbarium during my internship. I was amazed at how many specimens there are! It was important to learn how the collections and other herbaria are organized and maintained. One of the things that I enjoyed most was working in plant mounting. The staff and volunteers who do this are like artists, and many of the specimens they prepare are very beautiful. Watching this and other aspects meant that myself and the other interns on this project were able to learn about the journey that a plant makes after being collected in the field. It's exciting to know we worked with specimens that are now part of a historically significant collection that we expect will continue to be valued and protected for hundreds of years to come.

What's been the most amazing or unexpected thing you've seen, experienced or discovered while being part of the NMNH academic community?

I think everyone would agree with me that the Museum is a very exciting place to be! I could have happily spent much more time in the exhibits, on behind-the-scenes tours, and at nearby sites. A particular highlight of my time had to be the behind-the-scenes tour of the paleobiology collection. From the tiny specimens to the dinosaurs, everything was so cool, and it was awesome to be shown around by an expert! For me though, the most amazing part of my internship was the sense of commitment across the Museum community to making this a great experience for me. I encountered a wide range of scholars who made every effort to ensure that I learned as much as possible through the project and even beyond the Museum - making my visit to DC a wonderful experience.

Michelle Daniel, Winter Break Intern, Seeds of Success Project

 

 

Image credits: All images courtesy of Michelle Daniel

My journey as a facilitator for RACE: Are We So Different?

When I heard that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History would host RACE: Are We So Different? in 2011, I was excited at the opportunity to participate. Like the other volunteers recruited for this temporary exhibition, my role is that of a facilitator. I engage and encourage visitors as they wrestle with what many consider profoundly divisive and emotional topics: the relationship of race and racism to science, history, and personal experience.

This role was very appealing to me for two reasons. First, it departs from the traditional approach to learning, where knowledge is transferred from an expert to the student. Facilitation is a matter of encouraging learners to take the responsibility of learning on themselves. Second, I relished the opportunity to engage in a complex, public conversation that would enrich our understanding of how and why race is so deeply embedded in our culture and in our consciousness. Although I approach my work at the Museum as an informed but objective partner to visitors, I am no exception to the conversation. I face the same challenge as anyone: approaching each conversation as a neutral observer despite the preconceived notions and assumptions shaped by our life experiences.

As the son of a diplomat, I spent my formative years abroad, experiencing the rich cultural diversity of the Americas. But it wasn’t until I embarked on an international management career out of college that I began to really understand how race affected my life. My first assignment in Mexico gave me a deep appreciation for my Latino heritage. Ironically, in Mexico I was often told I was not Latino enough because of my years in the U.S. When my career took me to Jamaica, I was often considered there a “white mon,” a contrast to when I lived in the United States where at times I was not “white” enough. These changes in my status seem almost humorous because it would differ with every new country assignment. But the certainty with which people placed those labels is a troubling symptom of deeper problems. I’ve since been trying to do my part in helping to dismantle the race barriers that exist within our communities.

Now that I live in the DC area, I find RACE: Are We So Different? an excellent venue to have a safe and elevated conversation on race. The most successful interactions I have had with visitors occurred when I was able to build rapport in simple but powerful ways: to genuinely listen, to empathize and show compassion, to accept others’ experiences, and to speak only with the aim of enabling more conversation. Through this approach, we create a welcoming learning environment in the exhibition where visitors can encounter the exhibition’s messages about race and test them against their personal experience. This often results in Ah-ha! moments of clarity and insight.

And so if we humans are to solve the many global challenges facing us, a good place to start is to remove barriers that have historically divided us. Our world is more interconnected now than at any time in human history. So a promising global future may well rest on our current ability to value all our human cultural richness, while learning from our past in tandem with our present knowledge. I think RACE: Are We So Different? is a positive step forward.

E. David Garcia, Volunteer, RACE: Are We So Different?

Image Captions and Credits (top to bottom): E. David Garcia, volunteer for the RACE: Are We So Different? Exhibition; Talking about humanity's African origins with young visitors to the exhibition; Kristine D. Smith and Leon M. Smith II discuss the exhibition with Garcia. All photos courtesy of C. Chen, 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

Crowdsourcing Via Social Media Allows Rapid Remote Taxonomic Identification

Last month, a Smithsonian (NMNH)-sponsored team of ichthyologists performed the first survey of the fish diversity in the Cuyuni River of Guyana.  Upon their return, they needed to identify over 5,000 specimens in less than a week’s time in order to obtain an export permit.  Faced with insufficient time and inadequate library resources to tackle the problem on their own, they instead posted a catalog of specimen images to Facebook and turned to their network of colleagues for help. 

In less than 24 hours, this approach identified approximately 90% of the posted specimens to at least the level of genus, revealed the presence of at least two likely undescribed species, indicated two new records for Guyana and generated several loan requests. The majority of commenters held a Ph.D. in ichthyology or a related field, and hailed from a great diversity of countries including the USA, Canada, France, Switzerland, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil. 

By quickly tapping the collective expertise of their social network to help with the preliminary identification process, the expedition members were able to sort, pack and export the specimens to Washington DC in a timely manner. The identifications will also speed the cataloging process and help make the material available for loan and study as quickly as possible.  Such crowdsourcing of identifications would not have been possible five years ago, but increased internet access across South America and the massive recent growth of social networks have made tapping the world’s collective knowledge easier than ever.  Based on this experience, Facebook offers a remarkably efficient free tool that can accelerate taxonomic identification substantially.

Brian Sidlauskas, expedition leader and Research Collaborator of Dr. Richard Vari, in the National Museum of Natural History, Department of Vertebrate Zoology

Image captions and credits: Fish identified as Hypostomus taphorni. (top) Fish identified as Guianacara cuyunii. (bottom) Images courtesy of Whit Bronaugh, a graduate student at Oregon State University. 

*The expedition was funded by the NMNH Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program and the Department of Vertebrate Zoology.

Teens Focus on Ocean and Climate Issues for National Summit

Students from the Suquamish Tribal Early College High School, part of the Seattle Aquarium Delegation to the Third Student Summit on the Ocean & Coasts, are working on a project to raise community awareness of how ocean acidification impacts the Suquamish community–economically, environmentally, socially, and culturally. They will present their plans in Washington, D.C., tomorrow in a program that will be webcast live from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Learn more about the Student Summit and webcast, and enjoy their video!

Ocean Portal Team

Video courtesy of: Coastal America

Want Your Students to Take Active Roles in Global Environmental Issues? Just Shout!

A week from tomorrow, three of our staff will take part in a free online event for students and teachers called Study the Land. Study the Land is the second in a six-part series connecting experts in environmental sciences with you and others around the world - both during these live webcasts and through ongoing connections with Microsoft’s Partners in Learning Network, the Smithsonian Institution, and TakingITGlobal's online community.

Put together, this rich array of resources coalesces around themes about environmental responsibility known as “shouts.”  These six themes – Live, Study, Change, Sustain, Value, and Celebrate - make up the Shout Learning Project, and as described on its website:

Shout gives participants a framework for success, with resources and tools for exercising social responsibility while building the 21st-century skills of collaboration, innovation, and critical thinking. When students are connected through technology and empowered to build activities in their own way the learning experience extends far beyond the four walls of a classroom ...take your own stand in making the world a better place. Now that’s something to Shout about!

The NMNH staff participating in this second “shout” come from our Botany Department and bring their expertise in a variety of areas including plant conservation, scientific illustration, and systematic biology. Explore their profiles linked below:

• Gary A. Krupnick, Ph.D., is the Head of the Plant Conservation Unit [link to his staff bio]
• Alice Tangerini is a Staff Scientific Illustrator [link to her staff bio]
• W. John Kress, Ph.D., is a Curator and Research Scientist, as well as the Director of the Smithsonian's Consortium for Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet, and Adjunct Professor at The George Washington University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Yunnan [link to his staff bio]

We hope you’re now brimming with questions and excited to join them on January 26th. Don’t forget! Registration is free and only takes a few seconds. Can’t watch it live?  Watch the archive, follow the tweets, and join in their Facebook community.   We hope to see you there and at future Shouts.

Sarah Banks, Audience Engagement Specialist, Education and Outreach

Image courtesy of the Shout Learning Project

Be Part of the Future of Your Museum

Staring into the brilliance of the Hope Diamond.

Gazing up at an African bush elephant.

Discovering exhibits and browsing collections online.

Getting up close to a Coelacanth fossil.

Participating in a free, interactive educational program.

These are just a few of the memories experienced every day at NMNH. There are many more memories that you, the Museum’s community, shared with us this past year. Whether you visited the Museum as a child, or brought your own children to explore the wonders of science today; if you browse our blogs or stay up to date on our scientific research and discoveries—however you are involved—you are an important part of this Museum’s past. As we begin our next 100 years, we hope you will continue to be a part of our future. And one way you can start is by showing your support and giving back to your Museum. Your gift today will help us fulfill our mission tomorrow. You can contribute to one of our newest exhibitions, like Human Origins, donate to the Ocean Portal, or select a field of scientific study. Wherever you choose to give, your tax-deductible gift will help ensure this Museum continues to provide dynamic educational programs, important scientific research, interactive websites, and amazing exhibits for you and generations to come.

Thank you for being a part of the future of your Museum.

Text and imagery courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

Crafting for a Cause: The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Comes to the Smithsonian

This past summer, I was lucky enough to intern at the National Museum of Natural History as they prepared for an exhibit that is coming to the museum this weekend: The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef.  This project is a collaboration of Margaret and Christine Wertheim, two sisters from California who combine art, science, conservation, and mathematics to create a unique coral reef-like structure constructed out of crochet.  Unbeknownst to my supervisors, this project was right up my alley.  An avid craft enthusiast since childhood, I have always wanted to explore the medium of crochet, and the fact that this exhibit involves so many different disciplines made it even more fascinating to me.  What better way to raise awareness about coral reefs than creating one in our own community made out of beautiful and delicate needlework? (Plus: Who doesn’t like crafting for a cause?)

As part of my internship, I created a video podcast documenting the construction of the Smithsonian Community Coral Reef, which will be the largest part of the display in The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef.  In this podcast, I interviewed participants and shot footage of them crocheting individual pieces – called polyps - that put together will make up the reef.  Making this podcast was such great experience not only because of the unique nature of this project, but also because of the wonderful people I got to meet at events held at several D.C. area yarn shops as well as the Smithsonian itself.  Before I would film anything, I always sat down with the participants, a great majority of whom were women.  I was fascinated by hearing their stories of how they came to be involved in this project, from the woman who was crocheting in memory of her deceased, former-diver husband to a teacher involving her pre-teen students in the projects.  There was no shortage of stories.

Most of the participants came from the artistic perspective of the exhibit, avid crocheters who are always looking for a new project.  But along the way, they became interested in the science, mathematics, and conservation of aspects as well.  One specific image comes to mind of one of the workshops held at the Smithsonian.  As I came in, one woman was taking out a small stack of books she had brought with her from her local library to help educate her fellow crocheters on making their coral pieces naturally accurate.  Another woman had checked out books from the kids’ section of the library that included vibrant illustrations and pictures, inspiring her to branch out in crocheting different types of coral then the ones that had been initially suggested.

The sheer enthusiasm for being accurate in their designs was impressive enough, but the creativity of the participants was truly stunning.  As part of the Toxic Coral Reef section of the exhibit, one woman had the brilliant idea of using old videotape reels as yarn, resulting in a shiny and diseased looking piece of coral.  Along with her design, I witnessed many others crocheting with makeshift yarn made from plastic bags as additions to the reef, creating a stiff, captivating coral that must be seen to be believed.

All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better internship experience, and I’m so excited to make the drive down from Boston to see the exhibit.

Natalie Zarowny, Intern, Exhibits

 

Image captions and credits (top to bottom): Natalie Zarowny, courtesy of Natalie Zarowny; Polyps created for the Smithsonian Reef, courtesy of Natalie Zarowny; The Fiber Space Reef, courtesy of Jennifer Lindsay

Time to Celebrate!

To see NMNH at its best is to see its staff sharing their passion for science and community.   The recent Centennial Festival – Looking Both Ways: Past & Forward – found both these passions in abundance with over thirty activities spanning all three floors of the Museum’s public space.  Here are just a few of the highlights:

-     Forensic anthropologists and curators of the Written in Bone exhibit, Dr. Doug Owsley and Kari Bruwelheide, shared the investigation into the death of 19th-century naturalist Robert Kennicott
-     “Snugglepus the Platypus” surprised and delighted children in the Behring Family Hall of Mammals, as did a costumed shark in the Sant Ocean Hall (pictured at right)
-    Chief of Temporary Exhibitions Barbara Stauffer challenged visitors to imagine future exhibits at the Museum and encouraged them
to share their fondest NMNH memories

-    Karen McDonald demonstrated the principles of scientific illustration with new technology.
-    Special guest (and world champion elk and turkey caller) Gregory Hubbell, Jr. shared sounds from the wild and James Foote (pictured at left) brought a little presidential flair with his impersonation of Theodore Roosevelt.
 
Feeling like you missed out?  Don’t worry!  Many of these activities occur on a regular basis.  Even if you can’t make it to the Museum, we hope to hear from you!  Share your memories, help us imagine our future, and stay in touch by email, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube.  As we celebrate our past, we’re looking forward to the next one hundred years.  

Sarah Banks, Social Media and Special Projects Manager, Office of Education and Outreach

**Special thanks to Margery Gordon and her assistant Elizabeth Gerold for their herculean efforts to bring us all together for this memorable event!

Image credits (top to bottom): Images courtesy of Smithsonian Institution; Margery Gordon, Smithsonian Institution; and Joni Foote.