Fernbank Museum Of Natural History
For my field trip assignment, I decided to visit the Fernbank Museum Of Natural History. Located in Atlanta Georgia, the Fernbank Museum has a small cafe, an IMAX theater, museum stores, and many different exhibits, including hands on experiences that cater more to children. Aesthetically from the outside, Fernbank looks like a grand brick building situated in the middle of a woodsy area. Three tall dinosaur structures greet you while walking through the front door, and upon entering, after obtaing your tickets, you walk into the main foyer where you can see the main room and winding staircases that lead you up and down the three story building. Looking through the many exhibits, I found many objects that interested me, but, throughout the paper I will focus on five objects that tie into the readings in our anthropology textbook and course.
The first item that I found interesting was a replica of a Stegosaurus dinosaur. The Stegosaurus dinosaur was about eight feet tall, and happened to be in the Great Hall, alongside replicas of the tyranosaurus rex, pterodactyl, and hadrosaur. Found in the section named "A Walkthrough Time in Georgia" the Stegasosaurus replica was about 9 feet tall, and showed what the skeletal body would look like in great detail. The plackard placed below the stegosaurous stated that "stegosaurous had a walnut-sized brain" and that "the characteristic plates on the back of a Stegosaurus have never been found attatched to the body in fossils". the Stegosaurus dinosaur is originally from the jurrassic period, and was donated to the Fernbank museum by Dr. and Mrs. David Noble.
After walking through the "Extreme Mammals" exhibit the second object that I found interest...
... middle of paper ...
...modern society, and of course, the trumpet that was on display happenned to be almost a carbon copy of what jazz musicians use today.
The Fernbank Museum Of Natural History is a place where I will take my friends and family when they come to visit Atlanta. with all of the fascinating exhibits and objects, anybody who has a few hours to kill, will be extremely glad that they have the Ferbank to go to on a Sunday afternoon. With the small cafe, and IMAX theater, people from ages four to ninety-four will find either something that fascinates or excites them. The five objects that I decided to go into detail about are only one one thousandth of what a visitor can enjoy, and I know that the next time I visit the Fernbank Museum, there will be many objects that I have not yet seen, and maybe even a new exhibit or two that will lead me into a new cycle of discovery.
In the year 2002 a bizarre looking theropod dinosaur fossil was found in China (Xu). It challenges the way researchers have been thinking of theropods and other dinosaurs for a long time. In the Sahara desert, the oldest hominid skull in the world was found that same year. These are just two of many discoveries that have challenged the way we perceive the ancient world.
The difficulty in re-constructing dinosaurs for television and movies lies in the fact that not everything can be preserved. Fossilized bones create the skeleton of a dinosaur, thereby allowing scientists to study how they moved, how big they grew, and how different body parts worked as a whole. But what children see on television: the scaly green skin of the brontosaurs or the brown hair of a mastodon may not hold much fact. Unfortunately, particular physical features cannot be fossilized. Skin, cartilage, hair and other soft tissues usually decay before leaving science no clues to what these dinosaurs truly looked like. The public also cannot know the social behaviors of dinosaurs. Movies generally portray all carnivores like the T-Rex as monstrous bullies while the larger vegetarians all seem slow and peaceful. Up until recently, no hard evidence can be found to help support or dismiss any of these stereo-types. In the barren deserts of Argentina, a team of scientists from the National Geographic Society came across a massive graveyard of fossilized dinosaur eggs. In 1997, Dr. Luis Chiappe and Dr. Lowell Dingus discovered a rare opportunity to finally study the external functions of an ancient creature that contained fossilized teeth imprints, embryos and skin impressions. This unearthing unlocks endless prospects to learn about dinosaur behavior and external attributes, topics which used to be some of the most problematic areas of study. The most remarkable aspect, of course, is how the most delicate of information is found within an egg.
Shining Trumpets author Rudi Blesh presented the reader with an interesting argument. A true enthusiast himself, Blesh provided that because there are newer variations of jazz, the genre’s roots are losing transparency, and as a result, the music cannot truly be appreciated or understood. To give insight to the reader, he started the text with the earliest beginnings of jazz within the first three chapters and later on, its influence on other forms of music, such as the Blues as well as its spread outward from New Orleans. His focus was less of an attempt to give support to his claim that true jazz is dying and more of an attempt to enlighten the reader on what jazz is, in its purest form. As a cornerstone, he cited some primary sources such as old records and periodicals written during the height of genre. Interestingly enough, he used African music such as Ballanta and compared it with the tempo heard in the earlier jazz recordings. Other historians have taken a different approach to understanding it, however.
The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, also known as the Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, opened in 1857 and is one of the oldest natural history museums in the United States. It has had several locations, but is now permanently situated in a modern building in Lincoln Park as part of the city’s museums-in-the-parks program. There are many different exhibits, aimed mainly at helping children learn about nature. Children can experience the more than 1,000 butterflies in the butterfly haven, bird watch, learn about animal extinction, experience green living, watch scientists interact with spiders and other living creatures, hike the short nature trail, play in the hands-on habitat (toddlers), or enjoy any of the other fun and educational exhibits the museum offers. There are also quite a few daily special events so check the website before you go. If you have been to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, please leave a comment for others to enjoy.
The Chattahoochee Legacy Hall provides a timeline of history from the first civilizations to the modern day. When first entering I encountered a 15 foot alligator that was illegally killed and preserved and enclosed in a glass case, Oscar the Alligator is a fitting name. Down the hall I encountered an old slave house, where I met Cicero, a young slave who claimed the house was his. He spoke about Horace King and his great building skills. Across from the house, I noticed a beautiful red ceremonial beaded sash. According to the information next to the display I learned it was carried by a Yuchi chief named Sakasemyer, who snuck it through the Trail of Tears. Next to that was a school house, this exhibit was a favorite when I would visit the museum as a child. It is a one-room school complete with a large chalkboard in front behind the teacher’s desk and a smaller one on each of the sixteen desks. The detail is decent, upon walking in I heard an echo from the wooden floors and I noticed a bucket of coal for warming the room in the winter months. On the chalkboard assignments were listed for each particular grade level. The next era i...
From that point on there’s a digital interactive guide that displays the layout of the museum and location of the exhibits. The museum is divided into quadrants with an elliptical rotunda in the middle. The rotunda is illuminated by natural light from the glass dome with skylights above you. Also when you look up you can see extraordinary symbolic painting on the ceiling. From the center of the rotunda you can go left or right to see the exhibits of Native Americans. For some reason I felt like going in through the left, aside from the fact that the right side was closed for renovations. I headed left into the “Time Exposure” exhibit by the Haudenosaunee Discovery Room. When entering the exhibit it can seem a bit disoriented, but you just have...
recreational factors in which draws people from around the world to the area of Fort Walton Beach, Florida. The museum houses interpretive exhibits depicting 10,000 years of Native American occupation. Over 6,000 artifacts of bone, stone, clay, and shell are found within this museum, as well as the largest collection of Fort Walton Period ceramics in the Southeastern United States. Although every artifact present in The Indian Temple Mound Museum offers clear evidence of cultural sophistication and artistic skill, the more interesting artifacts I encountered were the Ware Human Effigy Urn, the Buck Burial Mound Urn...
As the tour of the museum began, it was easily noticed that all of the objects on display were placed behind thick glass cases. Many plaques inside of the case provide the visitor with information about the specific case that is being looked at. In most cases the plaques didn’t so much provide an elaboration on the pieces, but rather expand upon the historical context of the pieces. Also, the plaques shed light onto muc...
I had an opportunity to visit the oriental institute museum . During my visit to the museum I was made aware of its location and the importance of it to chicago. The museum housed many exhibits of historical value dating civilization back to the paleolithic period of 2,500,000-100,000 B.C. Below you'll find examples of mans rise through the use of tools and refined skills from cave living to structured living throughout evolution. This is an experience that has grounded me to a new interest in structures that we have devised to become the homes we use today for the rest of my life.
Toys, movies, clothing is a clear indication that our fascination with dinosaurs is much more than what the word represents, but also a genuine interests in the actual creatures scientists have uncovered. Dinosaur toys allow children to use their imagination to transport back to a time when dinosaurs walked the earth, became extinct, and eventually became fossils. Any kind of toy figure encourages imagination, dinosaur figures gives children an opportunity to learn about the science behind dinosaurs and fossils. Dinosaur toys, movies, clothing and advertisements also encourage children to ask questions, which becomes an opportunity to visit the library. “Judging from their frequent appearances in the movies and on television, dinosaurs have a firm hold in the popular imagination, one realm in which they show no danger of becoming extinct” (History.com, 2009). They are fierce, strong and because of anthropomorphism, dinosaurs are our
...xamples that show evolution exist. The exhibit use fossils to explain how there is an existence of similarities between the creatures who walk the earth today and who have walked the earth billions of years ago. Also how the Pangaea was divided into different continents and how plants and animals are only located in certain regions such as kangaroos, koala bears and other marsupials are only located in Australia. There are also other unique creatures located in other different parts of the globe, such as New Zealand. They also have a thirteen thousand year old human whom they found frozen in the snow that shows the world is older than 4,000 years as some other theory proclaims. I would recommend this exhibit to anyone who wants to learn the theory of evolution yet enjoy themselves with having fun with the activities, fossils, pictures and other fun teaching methods.
Ember, Carol R., Melvin Ember, and Peter N. Peregrine. Anthropology. Thirteenth ed. Boston, MA: Prentice Hall, 2011. Print.
1. Stanford, Craig. Allen, John S. Anton, Susan C. Exploring Biological Anthropology second edition. Pearson Education, Inc. 2008. Pages 238-420.
When a paleontologist makes a discovery about Dinosaurs it is usually a celebrated event and will appear on all sorts of covers of magazines and even newspapers, with good reason. These discoveries are often quite exciting for a few reasons. The whole experience of finding a fossil that is hundreds of millions of years old is quite an adrenaline rush, but the fact that each discovery has the ability to answer questions in relation to evolution is quite amazing. Each finding of Dinosaur remains can help answer questions of how that certain species evolved from another. If our species can fully understand how Dinosaurs evolved, maybe in the future we can learn something about our evolution. Without discoveries from the past how is our society supposed to persevere and learn from mistakes that may lead to our own extinction, and who to learn better from than perhaps the dinosaurs that have gone through many stages of evolution and have faced extinction.
One of my first museums I visited in Washington, D.C. was The National Museum of Natural History. I arrived with no expectations besides the thought of how am I going to spend 3 hours here? While walking through the doors I was astonished to see the enormous elephant standing there as if it was guarding the museum entrance. I continued through the exhibits looking at the amazing skeletons of the extinct creatures that once roamed this earth, possibly in the spot I was standing in. As I went further into the museum, I arrived at the Butterfly Pavilion. It was a room that you can go into to observe real, live, enormous butterflies. The exhibits there made my mind run wild like never before. In my mind the purpose of The National Museum of Natural His...