Thomas Macbride

Thomas Macbride

This week celebrates Thomas Macbride’s 164^th birthday! For you frequent museum goers you might recognize his last name. Like many influential professors and researchers in the UI’s history, Macbride Hall was named in honor of Thomas Macbride in 1934. The building was originally called Hall of Natural Science and was constructed in 1904.  

 

 

Botanical specimens collected by Macbride

July 31^st is a day of celebration and remembrance of Thomas Macbride. He was a highly accomplished individual. He joined the University of Iowa in 1878, and in five years began teaching botany.  He became the head of the Department of Botany in 1902. He had a huge love and passion for the outdoors and its preservation. He is known as the father of Iowa conservation for his role in forming the state park system (Lake Macbride State Park was also named after Thomas Macbride for his continual dedication to botany and The University of Iowa). 

 

Macbride (center) with his peers

  

Thomas Macbride and his fellow botanist, Bohumil Shimek, were major contributions to the study of botany, as well as the Museum of Natural History’s botanical holdings. 

Learn more about Thomas Macbride in the Iowa Hall Lobby

Botany of Shakespeare

-Written by Assistant Education Coordinator Ashlee Gloede

National Park and Recreation Month

July is the perfect time for outdoor exploration (well, if you can stand the heat!). Local and national recreation areas and parks are great places to start your summer of adventure. 

In 1985 the National Recreation and Park Association designated July as National Recreation and Parks Month. July is the best time for friends, family, or groups to rediscover their local parks or visit news ones. Monday was a beautiful (but hot) day, but that did not stop the Education staff at the Museum of Natural History from visiting the Devonian Fossil Gorge in Coralville. This trip was full of discovery and new adventures! For some people this was their first trip to the Devonian Fossil Gorge. If you haven’t visited the Gorge, I would highly recommend you take an afternoon adventure or a family outing to this wonderful area, especially if you like learning about Iowa’s past and finding fossils. 

This holiday isn’t only about outdoor exploration, but also about recognizing and acknowledging those who work in the parks. The men and women working or volunteering in the parks make our experience entertaining and memorable. Like any place whether it’s a museum or park, it takes a lot of care and effort to make it a beautiful and enjoyable place for families and friends to visit. 

 

Have you visited a park yet? If not, don’t worry there is still plenty of time before the summer is over! Iowa has tons of great parks and recreation areas to visit. Here is a list to get you started:

-          Hickey Hills Park, Iowa City

-          Lake Macbride State Park, Johnson County

-          F.W. Kent Park, Johnson County

-          Coralville Lake and Devonian Fossil Gorge, Coralville

-          Backbone State Park, near Dundee

-          Wildcat Den State Park, Muscatine

-          Waubonsie State Park, Sidney

-          Volga River State Recreation Area, Fayette

For more information about parks in Iowa visit the Iowa DNR website.

And don’t forget about your furry friends! They love outdoor exploration just as much as you do!

-Written by Assistant Education Coordinator Ashlee Gloede

Field Trip to Trowbridge Hall

Trowbridge Hall is home to the University of Iowa’s widely recognized Geoscience Department and the Iowa Geological and Water Survey, yet it also houses a little-known collection that is on display in its very halls. Within this historic building resides a collection of both hard-to-find and familiar minerals from around the state and around the world and whose histories are as varied as their colors and shapes. 

One example is this specimen of selenite found in Oklahoma. Selenite, otherwise known as Gypsum (CaSO₄*₂H₂O), is a common sulfate evaporate mineral found in warm, arid regions. Gypsum is typically clear to white in color but can sometimes come in brown tabular shapes as show in the specimen to the right. Gypsum is also a very soft mineral often used in plaster and cement, but another form, referred to as “alabaster,” is used in stone and monument carving. 

Realgar is an arsenic sulfide mineral (AsS), pictured right, which is only common in certain areas with low-temperature hydrothermal activity. Realgar can appear to be blood-red with prismatic crystals, but once exposed to sunlight and weathering, begins to change to the typical yellow and granular structure associated with sulfur deposits. This substance was once used in early fireworks manufacturing in China to produce the brilliant white colors that are now produced by many powdered metals such as magnesium. Realgar was also used by the ancient Greeks and Romans as a type of rat poison and red pigment in paints. 

 Heulandite is a silicate mineral with a lot going on. The chemical composition contains calcium, sodium, aluminum, silicon, oxygen and water molecules, a large mix of atoms for such small crystals, and is formed in the cavities commonly found in the volcanic rocks called basalts and in lower-temperature hydrothermal settings. These crystals are commonly tabular and radiate out from a single point in a cavity.

The mineral above is an interesting specimen with a long history and a dangerous side. Cinnabar is a mercury sulfide (HgS) with a beautiful red to purple color and a rhombohedral to tabular shape typically crystallizing in areas of lower temperatures around volcanic hot springs alongside opal. As many now know, mercury is a very sever hazard to humans and animals, and cinnabar is a common mineral ore for mercury, yet people in ancient China did not realize this information. In the Taoist tradition, priests would create mixtures with cinnabar to provide to emperors and elite leaders in order to prolong their life; however, we now know that cinnabar has the complete opposite effect, inflicting the imbiber with mercury poisoning.

These minerals mentioned here, and many other illustrious specimens, can be seen on display in the hallways of Trowbridge Hall on the University of Iowa campus. Please contact the Museum of Natural History with any questions about the location or about any of the minerals on display.  

-Written by MNH Education Staff Member Lee Falkena

UI Herbarium

Did you know the University of Iowa had a herbarium? Did you know it was part of the UI Museum of Natural History? The Herbarium was established by Charles White in the Cabinet of Natural History (now the Museum of Natural History). The Cabinet of Natural History and Herbarium were housed in the Old Capitol building around 1869. It was the first Herbarium in the state! In 1880, Thomas Macbride became the first Professor of Botany and Curator of the Herbarium. For the next 55 years, Macbride and Bohumil Shimek contributed more than 25,000 specimens, and most were collected in Iowa. The Herbarium was a repository for dried and fossil plant specimens from all over the world, but the primary focus was Iowa and North America. The Herbarium was one of the largest in the United States, and housed the only major collection of bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, hornworts) and fossils in the state.

Despite its vital resource for students, staff, and faculty and historical significance, the University of Iowa closed the Herbarium in April of 2004. The collection was taken to Iowa State University Herbarium….or that’s what we thought! The UI Biology Department was clearing out a classroom, and invited us to see if we wanted/needed anything for our teaching collection or the education department. While we were rummaging through things, we discovered a dried Fibra Satanta specimen from Guatemala. This plant once belonged in our Herbarium and now it’s back at the Museum!

-Written by Assistant Education Coordinator Ashlee Gloede

Adventures in Geology, Paleontology, and Archaeology

Each summer the Belin-Blank Center offers a variety of challenging courses in science, math, and literature for students in grades 2^nd-6^th. These programs allow students to explore a variety of cultural and recreational activities, as well as experience college life through study and play in university classrooms, laboratories, dining halls and recreational centers.

This summer the UI Museum of Natural History took part in Belin-Blank Center program, Challenges for Elementary School Students (CHESS). Eight students in 4^th-6^th grade participated in this program at the museum. They traveled back in time to discover 500 million years of our state’s natural history while solving science mysteries along the way. They explored the fields of geology, paleontology, and archaeology by conducting investigations with real University of Iowa scientists around campus and learn about these career fields in the real world.

Let’s rock! The students began their 500 million year adventure by visiting Trowbridge Hall. In the halls of Trowbridge, the UI Paleontology Repository has a variety of rocks and minerals on display (these displays are free and open to the public). To understand what is a mineral, students picked their favorite mineral to draw and describe. Outside of Trowbridge Hall, the students visited the rock garden to discuss the rock cycle and the many different types of rocks.

 

MNH’s Education Department developed discovery trunks for the Devonian period, Pennsylvanian period, and Quaternary period. The students explored these trunks to learn more about these time periods. Each trunk is equipped with fossils, fossil replicas, lesson plans, rock, rock/mineral kits, and books (for all reading levels). Each trunk contains different items depending on the time period covered within. (For more information about the Discovery Trunks, please email uimnh@uiowa.edu or call 319.335.0606.) The students had an exceptionally fun time playing a Fossilization Game from the trunk. In the game, students are given chances to travel  from life to death to fossilization and discovery.

The students had a blast learning about volcanoes! They discussed the three types of volcanoes – cinder, shield, and composition – and played two games to help understand the processes of volcanoes. Are you faster than lava? That’s a question we proposed to the students. We had four different lava flows – Stombolian, A’a, Pyroclastic, and Pahoehoe. We timed the students to see who could out run/survive each type of lava flow.

Throughout the two weeks, the students visited the UI Paleontology Repository, Office of the State Archaeologist and the UI Museum of Natural History laboratories.  The UI Paleontology Repository comprises over a million fossils from invertebrate, vertebrate, and plant fossils. The students were able to explore millions of years of natural history on their tour through the Repository. During their adventure at the Office of the State Archaeologist, they experienced playing with Native American games, such as throwing atlatls. With recent mammoth excavations happening at the UI Museum of Natural History, the students learned how to clean and catalogue mammoth bones.

  

 

-Written by MNH Education Staffer Lee Falkena