Night at the Museum Visits Space!

It’s a cloudy night in Iowa City, but that’s not stopping this Friday’s Night at the Museum, which focuses on the night sky and stars.  The usual standbys are on the schedule – pizza, Hageboeck Hall of Birds and Mammal Hall in the dark – but today’s program features a visit from the Cedar Amateur Astronomers, who’ve brought their telescopes all the way from Mount Vernon and set up shop on the Pentacrest.

Before there’s any stargazing, however, the astronomers have lots to teach – people have been gazing at the stars for hundreds of years, all of them wondering what was out there.  The children learn of astronomers of old times – Eratosthenes, Ptolemy – who thought the planets revolved around the sun.  They learn of astronomers of (slightly) more recent times – Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler – who built telescopes to see farther into the sky.   (The children play with cardboard telescopes for several minutes, looking at everything they can.) It’s easy to think of astronomy as unfixed, unchanging, that for all of history people have looked out onto the stars and come to the same conclusion, but our conceptions of astronomy are constantly changing, as we learn more about the moon and the sun, the constellations and the brightest of stars. 

After a jaunt through Mammal Hall and some snacks in the Biosphere Discovery Hub, the children don their fall jackets and head outside to the Pentacrest, where the astronomers have set up two telescopes.  It’s cloudy, so there aren’t many stars; instead, the children use the telescopes to look right into the Old Capitol.  (Still, some of them find Venus, shouting, “It’s Venus!” and “Hi, Venus!” as they wait.) Not all of them have used telescopes before, and they come back for second and third looks, captivated by the view the telescope gives them – they’ve all seen the Old Capitol before, but not this way.

As soon as everyone’s back in the auditorium, the astronomers load a computer program that’ll let the children see the stars without clouds.  Once they understand what they’re seeing, the children want to see everything – they want to see the stars in all the seasons, from every angle.  The computer program also maps lines on top of the constellations – sometimes the constellations are hard to pick out, composed of bright stars and some very dim ones – and once the astronomers show this feature to the children, they’re hooked.  It’s nature’s very own game of connect the dots, and who can pass that up? They want to see the Big Dipper, the Northern Star, Sagittarius and Gemini, the bear and the fish; they even want to see Andromeda, the closest galaxy to ours.

There’s something about the stars that’s impossible to ignore – why else have we looked at them for so long? We love mysteries – how we love the thrill of the unexplainable – but what’s more, we love to solve them.  Yet the night sky is that one mystery that can’t be solved.  We’re finding clues, making patterns, but the real answer is forever hidden.  And maybe that’s okay. 

-Written by MNH Volunteer Catherine Babikian

Ethnographic Collection

When it comes to the museum’s collections, Rusty tends to steal the show.  He’s always the first animal we think of, followed by the other animals and birds scattered across the museum galleries: when people ask me what’s really at the museum, I always tell them about the walruses in Mammal Hall, or Dunky, the Devonian age fish in Iowa Hall (after Rusty, of course).

But if you take a trip around Iowa Hall, you’ll find a whole host of other artifacts in the archaeology section – clay pots, beaded jewelry, and who could forget the bear claw necklace? 

And although we’ve written of the birds and animals in museum storage, there are also plenty of ethnographic items in the museum vault, right next to Hornaday’s birds.  Open up the white drawers and you’ll find items from all kinds of far-flung places: beaded vests, ceremonial objects, children’s playthings.  They come from multiple continents – places hard to get to, or hardly there at all – and decades long gone.  Most of all, they come from cultures I’ve never seen and people I’ve never met: looking in the drawers is looking at another place and time.  And wherever, whenever, the item comes from, it’s always somewhere very different from downtown Iowa City or its surrounding corn (and soybean) fields. 

We put a lot of stock in the written word: at museums, I always search for the paragraph or two of explanation accompanying an exhibit, sometimes before I’ve even glanced at the objects.  And the shelves of memoirs and autobiographies at the local bookstore speak to our faith in the written records people leave behind. But these artifacts in the museum vault have no convenient blurbs, no letters or diary entries attached to them – maybe a tag indicating where and when they come from, but not much more.  They speak for themselves, and invite us to fill in the blanks.  Who sewed all those beads? Who carved that arrow? Who really used that toy? And why?

Even if we research and learn more about the artifacts – the ethnographic items in the main gallery, for example, all have a sentence or two of explanation – the questions still stand.  After all, every item in the collections has its own fascinating, and perhaps unfathomable, history.  Each item’s been passed from person to person, hand to hand, over the course of months or years, until it makes its way to our collections, so that you or I can wonder where it came from, and try our hands at filling in the blanks.

 

(And that applies to the rest of the collections, too: where’d those walruses really come from?)

 

 

-Written by MNH Volunteer Catherine Babikian

Insects are invading the museum!

It’s yet another Friday night at the museum – rather, it’s another Night at the Museum, this one bug themed.  Children gather in the front of Iowa Hall, excited to spend an evening talking about the creepy, crawling critters that skitter across kitchen floors and conquer their backyards.  Previous programs have focused on things like penguins and the Galapagos Islands – fascinating in their own way, but not something you’ll see at home.  By contrast, bugs are everywhere, and the children’s excitement is palpable.

Although we have several bug activities planned – creating a “bug jar,” for example – tonight’s program features a presentation from the Iowa State University’s Insect Zoo.  After pizza and punch, the children head to the Biosphere Discovery Hub, where two entomologists have filled an entire table with bug jars and butterfly cases. 

They first bring out mealworms – which flip if you tap their heads accordingly – but the real action starts with the beetles.  Small, black, and mobile, the beetles bounce around the tables as the children try to identify the three parts to an insect: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen.  Some of the beetles crawl along outstretched fingers, jumping from hand to hand and occasionally trying to make a dive to the ground.

After the beetles come hissing cockroaches; these cockroaches are far bigger than the ones you might see at home, about the length of a pinky finger, and of course, they hiss.  Cockroaches, the children learn, are decomposers – they eat things that are rotting, giving them a more important role in the ecosystem than at first glance.  The cockroaches zoom around the tables.  The children try tapping their shells so they can move faster – sometimes they don’t budge, other times they nearly fall off the table.

We often see cockroaches—or other bugs—as unruly pests, and nothing more: the moment we see them scurrying around the kitchen, we reach for the kitchen and squelch it.  The Insect Zoo, by contrast, gives the children a chance to see them up close, to really investigate its antennae, or the pattern of its shell.  Every animal, every creature, is intriguing and intricate, but these little things get overlooked in everyday life, in the rush of getting the bug out of the kitchen.  Tonight, however, there’s no squelching.

When the entomologists pass out 
millipedes, the children look to see how the thin, orange legs—all 300 or 400 of them—propel the millipede around an outstretched finger, and how the millipede attaches itself, like Velcro, to whatever surface.  Later on, the children learn about a ‘walking stick,’ another decomposing insect.  One of the presenters holds a walking stick in her outstretched hand, and it falls from her hand at least five times – but it keeps on walking anyways.  The children look at a praying mantis in a glass jar, and come up to the front table to look at butterflies in cases.

But it’s the tarantula that takes the cake.  Cockroaches and beetles are everywhere, but it’s not every day you can touch a tarantula.  

-Written by MNH Volunteer Catherine Babikian

Nature's Small Wonders Pack a Vibrant Punch!

By Catherine Babikian

Take a look around Mammal or Hageboeck Hall of Birds and you’ll find a cornucopia of fascinating animals, from little sparrows and finches to impressive walruses and bison.  Although these halls are home to plenty of animals, even more reside in museum storage.  The Museum of Natural History has far more animals in its possession than it has room for display – the attic of Macbride Hall is teeming with beautiful animals from all over the world.

Many of these animals were collected by William Temple Hornaday and given to the museum after his death.  A zoologist and graduate of Iowa State University, Hornaday traveled far and wide to collect animals – the deserts and beaches of Australia and the jungles of New Zealand and Malaysia among them.  His birds are splashed with bright blues, deep crimson reds, and hints of green and purple, a real change from the grays and whites of Iowa birds.  Hornaday might not have thought of it this way, but he was collecting colors and patterns as much as he was collecting birds.

 

In 1886, at the height of westward expansion, Hornaday began to collect buffalo from Montana: he expected that buffalo would be extinct by 1900, and wanted to collect specimens for future generations.  The impending extinction of the buffalo pained him, and he became an ardent conservationist.  He was friends with Teddy Roosevelt – Roosevelt once gave Hornaday a jaguar skull he’d shot, which the museum has in its collections – and together they formed the American Bison Society. 

For Hornaday, museums weren’t just places to deposit old things; they were places for the future to learn about the past, even if the past was long gone.  Although buffalo are not extinct today, Hornaday collected them so that we would still know our past – the Museum of Natural History does the same thing. Although not every animal in the museum’s collections is on display, it still reminds us of another place, or another time. 

My favorite birds are a set of hummingbirds collected by Hornaday – we don’t know where they’re from, but they sure are beautiful! Sometimes you don’t have to be a walrus or a bison – or even a giant sloth named Rusty – to be breathtaking.  Sometimes the smallest things are worth the most notice.  Hornaday surely knew it.

-Written by MNH Volunteer Catherine Babikian

Welcome Back!

Welcome back students! It’s great to see so many faces back on campus. I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing summer break! This semester at the Museum of Natural History is full of exciting opportunities for students and faculty. 

Are you interested in volunteering or need to complete a service learning requirement? Well, the museum is the place for you! We provide opportunities for students to work in the gift shop and education department. You can also help out with children’s programming, museum tours, and public outreach – like the UI Homecoming Parade, FRY Fest, Creepy Campus Crawl, and more! For more information about volunteer, please contact Ashlee Gloede, Assistant Education and Outreach Coordinator – ashlee-gloede@uiowa.edu. Also check out our booth at the UI Volunteer Fair on Wednesday August 29^th from 11am-3pm in the IMU.

If you are not interested in volunteering, that’s okay too. The museum offers a wide range from programs from children’s birthday parties to adult lectures. And it’s also a fun place to hang out between classes. We are open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays 10am-5pm, Thursdays 10am-8pm, and Sundays 1pm-5pm. For more information about the museum, please call 319-335-0606 or email uimnh@uiowa.edu. This week only we will be open until 8pm on Wednesday! Stop by and meet Rusty out Giant Ground Sloth.

Over the summer, the museum became involved with a mammoth excavation in Southern Iowa. For the past two years John and the family have kept the discovery of the mammoth relatively quiet, but they recently decided to enlist the help of UI experts to aid in the excavation.  So far more than thirty bones have been recovered, including an impressive femur, multiple ribs and vertebrae and a few toe bones. We will be visiting the site periodically throughout the semester, so if you are interested in volunteering at a dig please contact Sarah Horgen – sarah-horgen@uiowa.edu – for more information. I would highly recommend this once in a life time opportunity! 

There are many organizations and groups to join on campus, and sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming. Tomorrow is the Student Organization Fair at Hubbard Park from 11am-3pm., which you can meet and talk with the different organizations on campus. A great organization to join is the Campus Museum Collective. This organization is dedicated to strengthening the position of campus museums within the University community. It seeks to assist campus museums in efforts of outreach, while fostering a robust collective of individuals committed to the advancement of these important institutions. If you are interested in joining, please email iowa.cmc@gmail.com to get more information. 

Have a wonderful semester and remember to stop by the museum!

-Written by Assistant Education Coordinator Ashlee Gloede

Hoover’s Hometown Days

Public outreach is very important for the museum. Each year the museum’s education staff visits a variety of places throughout the entire state of Iowa to promote the museum, its programs, its collections, and more.

 

A few weeks ago (August 3 and 4), West Branch celebrated Hoover’s Hometown Days.  This is an annual celebration held at the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site. The weekend is filled with live entertainment, Hooverball competitions, birthday cake, and over 70 exhibitors and vendors. And it’s not Hoover’s Hometown Days without extreme heat! Well this year we were thrown for a loop; not only was it extremely hot but we also got to experience 50+ miles an hour wind, lightning strikes, and a torrential downpour.  But I am getting ahead of myself!

We had a booth at Hoover’s Hometown Days to promote and spread the news about the museum’s upcoming programs and exhibits. Many families stopped by our booth to tell us how much they enjoy visiting our museum. Our favorite thing to hear! We were also able to inspire new families to visit the museum. Throughout the morning the weather seemed to be getting muggier and muggier, and the sky was starting to turn a dark shade of blue (which is never a good sign). Moments later, park rangers began announcing the upcoming forecast of 50 miles an hour wind and rain. We quickly began to pack up all our promotional materials and replicas. We were told this would be a quick storm, so we left everything inside our tent. 

As soon as all our things were packed away, the rain started. The closest shelter we could find was on the porch of the Superintendent’s office.  The wind and rain really started to pick up. And with one huge gust of wind our tent along with the OSA’s tent were picked up and blown several feet away. Since the storm had no intention of stopping, all we could do was stand on the porch, soaking wet, watching the horrible storm blow through Hoover’s Hometown Days. 

Luckily no one was hurt by this storm and 

we will never forget Hoover’s Hometown Days 2012!

-Written by Assistant Education Coordinator Ashlee Gloede

Lion King at the Museum!

Did you know that Iowa City once had a zoo? Indeed, City Park used to have a zoo, City Park Zoo. Not much is known about the zoo, but it did have a variety of animals: chickens, monkeys, rabbits, raccoons, bears, and of course, the lions.  A young girl who frequented the zoo in the 1930’s remembered taking old bread to feed the animals.  With her back turned to the lion cage, she remembered one lion lunging at the bars, rattling the cage, and scaring her group.  She also remembered that if she left the windows open in her house on a summer night, she could hear the lions roaring in the distance – not something you hear every day in the city or in Iowa. 

 

 In the 1920’s Harry Bremer, Iowa City resident, brought two lions to the United States from Africa. For a short time, Mr. Bremer actually kept the lions in the carriage house on his property at 1036 Woodlawn Avenue, less than 1 mile away from Macbride Hall.  Inside the carriage house, there is still evidence of the lions; there are metal posts in the ground where the pair were likely chained.  Later, Mr. Bremer donated the lions to the City Park Zoo.

   What happened to the lions? The male lion unfortunately died in the extremely hot weather of July 1931.  He was only 2 ½ years old.  This explains why he does not yet have a full mane.  After his death, the male lion was brought to the Museum of Natural History. The female lion lived in the City Park Zoo well beyond the death of her companion.  She died in February of 1939 and was then donated to the Museum of Natural History where she was reunited with her companion. 

These two lions are a huge part of the museum’s history, as well as the history of Iowa City and its residents. In celebrating this history, the museum is hosting a free program for children and families on Saturday August 11^th from 5pm-8pm. Families can lead an African expedition through the museum, tell jokes with our hyena, and make lion crafts! Following the program, the Summer of the Arts Free Movies Series will present Disney’s “The Lion King.”

In addition to the museum’s program, the Johnson County Historical Society and Hills Bank are hosting a Barn Tour on Saturday August 11^th. The group will be exploring urban barns in Iowa City including the barn were the lions once lived. These barns were either built in the city as a carriage house/barn or have become absorbed by the city as it has expanded. Pre-registration is required. Visit the Johnson County Historical Society’s website for more information - http://www.johnsoncountyhistory.org/

-Written by Assistant Education Coordinator Ashlee Gloede