World Penguin Day

As a child, my older brother loved penguins.  He collected penguin stuffed animals, and over the years, a small colony of penguins collected in our house.  Some of them were specific kinds of penguins; others were just tuxedo penguins.  One year for Christmas my parents gave him a large, upright macaroni penguin – so named because of his thatch of macaroni-colored hair – and  another year, an Emperor penguin.  Sometime after that, he added a generic penguin with soft fur and floppy wings to the collection, then a penguin with a striped hat.

But his favorite penguin was a small, knobbly penguin with a black-and-red striped scarf.  His name was Mr. Penguin, and though he was small, he was the oldest, and like all old things, he was the most loved.  Today, while the other penguins sit next to my brother’s dresser, Mr. Penguin has a place of honor on the bookshelf.

I think, like all of us, he liked the penguins’ upright sturdiness, their big webbed feet and seemingly useless wings.  Portly and slow walking, the only birds that cannot fly, penguins seem friendly and approachable, like animals a young boy could befriend.  And my brother surely liked the distinctive tuxedo that a penguin sports.

April 25 is World Penguin Day – this Wednesday, the penguins will start their migration northward.  Because the southern hemisphere is entering the winter season, the days are getting shorter and shorter, and some species of penguins cannot see very well in the dark.  To survive, they head north, and for the duration of the winter, they’ll vacation on some floating ice, catch krill and fish to eat, and swim in the ocean. 

We sometimes think of penguins as “the birds that can’t fly,” or just “the tuxedo birds.” But on closer look, a penguin’s style is carefully adapted for its environment.  Their wings may not support them in flight, but their shape makes them excellent flippers, helping a penguin glide through the water with ease.  Their tuxedo, too, helps them in the water – when a penguin’s in the water, their black suit jackets hide them from orcas and seals.

Today, my brother no longer collects penguins, but on a trip to the San Diego Zoo last year, he and I excitedly considered the possibility of seeing real, live penguins in the zoo.  After years of collecting penguins, we could see real life ones, and so we watched flamingos, chimpanzees, and gorillas thinking that a penguin would be just around the corner. 

Finally, we decided to ask a zoo staff member, who told us we had to go to Sea World.  “There’s polar bears here, though,” she said, seeing our crestfallen faces. 

So, we trekked to the polar bear station, and though we had wanted to see penguins, we were pleasantly surprised by the polar bears.  The polar bear cubs played with carrots and toys, reminding us of our dog at home.  Their white fur glistened in the sun. But polar bears and penguins are not equal.  Polar bears are sometimes flashy: we’ve admired pictures of polar bears, seen them on Coke bottles, watched documentaries in which polar bears hunt for food and protect their young. 

Penguins, on the other hand, may have gotten their time in the sun with March of the Penguins, but somehow don’t carry the same flash that a polar bear does: to start, they don’t advertise soda.  But every year, they always migrate northward, and every year, they come back to the ice.  Every year, they huddle together to keep warm in the face of a stinging winter.  And every year, they dive into the water to swim with the same grace of a flying bird.  We simply cannot see their diving the way we see a bird fly.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate a penguin and their down-to-earth style.  After all, in each of our lives, we have a penguin: the person who works hard behind the scenes, the person who’s always sturdy and supportive.  We may have polar bears in our lives, who flit in and out of our stories, but the penguins in our lives always come back.  Penguins live far away, but they’re not so different from us – so, on April 25, look southward, and then look for the penguin in your own life. 

Make sure to stop by the museum to visit the couple of penguins in Hageboeck Hall of Birds.

 

-Written by MNH Volunteer Catherine Babikian

National Volunteer Week

National Volunteer Week April 15-21, 2012

Ashlee Gloede, Assistant Education and Outreach Coordinator

The University of Iowa Museum of Natural History is very honored each year to celebrate National Volunteer Week. National Volunteer Week was established in 1974 under President Richard Nixon to recognize and celebrate the efforts of volunteers throughout the United States. National Volunteer Week is just not about thanking our current volunteers, but also encouraging people of all ages to volunteer. 

 The University of Iowa of Museum of Natural History has over 20 regular volunteers who dedicate time each week to help the museum grow and succeed. We have a very small permanent staff, so volunteers are heavily relied on to help with the collections, programs, tours, and special events. A majority of our volunteers work at the front desk in our main gallery, so they are the face of the museum when visitors arrive.

I believe the Museum of Natural History has some of the greatest volunteers! A majority of our volunteers are UI students since we are conveniently located in the heart of UI campus. I am proud to say that our program is starting to expand!  We currently have students from elementary through high school volunteering on a weekly basis at the museum.

This year the Museum of Natural History is celebrating National Volunteer Week in a unique way. Our volunteers are getting the opportunity to participate in a behind-the-scenes tour of our collection spaces. These spaces are not open to the public, so this is an exciting opportunity for everyone. Also in accordance with National Volunteer Week, the Pentacrest Museums (Museum of Natural History and Old Capitol Museum) are hosting its 6^th annual Family Weekend on the Pentacrest. Family Weekend is Saturday April 21 from 10am-5pm and Sunday April 22 from 1pm-5pm. The Museum of Natural History hosts a selection of environmentally themed programs throughout the weekend, including arts and crafts activities and several talks and demonstrations. This event could not be done without the help of all our volunteers! This year our goal in honor of National Volunteer Week is to get 100 volunteer hours or more throughout the week. 

Below is a link to the Volunteer Appreciation Video made by the UIMNH Education Staff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULywIEyAYUA

-Written by Assistant Education Coordinator Ashlee Gloede

Leap into National Frog Month!

I grew up on fairy tales as a child.  I can never quite remember where I learned that Cinderella’s magic would run out at midnight or that Red Riding Hood was saving her grandmother from the wolf, but I had learned all these stories (particularly the Disney varieties) by the time I started school.  So had all the other girls I went to school with; we argued endlessly over who was the best Disney princess, hashing out these fairy tales time and time again.

But now that April is National Frog Month, I can remember another fairy tale.  A princess, ensconced in pink, shimmering tulle, skips out into the yard to play with a golden ball – but the ball bounces into the pond and the domain of a charming frog.  In order to get her favorite ball back, the princess has to befriend him despite her initial reluctance.  But it turns out that this frog is really a prince, turned into a frog by some spiteful witches; he needs the princess’ kiss to turn him back into a prince again. 

She kisses him, of course, and he turns out to be a handsome prince, as promised, and they live happily ever after.

But while Museum of National History has its own share of frogs this spring, none of them are handsome princes waiting in the wings.   Instead, the frogs are part of the museum’s “wet collection” – thousands of preserved aquatic species, some of which are on display outside Iowa Hall. 

Most of them are kept long-term in an ethanol solution, which helps to preserve the skeletal systems and the soft tissue of the animals; this kind of storage allows researchers to study them long after they were originally found.  The museum even has some specimens that were found during excavations in the early 20^th century, originating from places as near as the California coast and as far as New Zealand: the careful storage of these animals means we can still look at the fish today. 

 To a modern-day viewer, however, the jars can look eerie.  At first glance, the frogs almost swim in their yellow solution, but at second, they’re stuck in time for what seems like an eternity.  Their fixed positions mean we can look at them for minutes at a time, unlike the frog who hops away with the princess’ golden ball.  We can turn away for a second and look back, and they will still be there; we can come back another day, or another month, and they will still be there.

Such is the nature of all preserved animals: almost, but not quite. But there’s much to learn from these frogs.  They’re always there, giving us the benefit of multiple glances, multiple examinations, when so many things are gone in a second.  Each time we look, we see something different.  It doesn’t have to be an earth-shattering revelation about frogs, but a simple observation or a new understanding to take with us. 

And with this knowledge, gleaned from the helpful tutelage of the frogs, this April we can step out into the yard in our pink tulle.  When our golden ball bounces into the pond, as it inevitably will, we know just a little more about the frog who charms us - even if he’s not a prince.

-Written by MNH Volunteer Catherine Babikian


Can you find these and other frogs around the Museum?

Fossils from giant Ice Age bear now on display for first time at UI Museum

A southwest Iowa farmer discovered the bones of the bear on his farm in 2008 and loaned them to the UI.  After a time-consuming process of analysis and verification, UI scientists have now confirmed that the find is the first verified short-faced bear specimen found in the state, say Holmes Semken, UI professor emeritus of geoscience, and Trina Roberts, associate director of the UI Museum of Natural History.

Joe and Denise Walker

                             
Joe Walker of Brayton made the discovery in the back dirt of a USDA flood control dam along Troublesome Creek, near Atlantic. “The bone was unusually large and my first thought was that it could be from something extinct,” Walker says. He had the bone identified by U.S. Department of Agriculture archaeologist Richard Rogers of Des Moines, who identified the bones, a tibia and pelvis fragment, as belonging to Arctodus simus, commonly known as the giant short-faced bear.

Joe Walker and Holmes Semken survey the land where

the bones were discovered.

The giant short-faced bear is the largest mammalian land carnivore ever to live in North America, reaching heights of over 11 feet when standing upright. They lived from 1.6 million to 11,000 years ago alongside giant ground sloths, mammoths and, near the end of the Ice Age, the first Native Americans to enter Iowa.
 
“My first reaction was what the heck is a short-faced bear?” says Walker. “I had never heard of it and had a hard time imagining that such a huge bear existed in this area. What I find most impressive about this bear species is its size, ferocity, and the fact that it co-existed with humans for a time.”

Scaled image of giant short-faced bear and early man.

Image courtesy of http://library.sandiegozoo.org

 “It's not a surprise that one was found here,” Roberts explains, “because the distribution of previous finds is quite broad across North America and surrounds Iowa. But it is a confirmation that they were here. That also means that this specimen may be important in understanding the biology of short-faced bears, because it can help us determine what traits are consistent across the species' wide range.“

Image courtesy of Barton, Miles, et al. Prehistoric

America A Journey Through The Ice Age And

Beyond. BBC Worldwide Ltd, London. 2002

UI researchers have already collaborated with colleagues at UI Hospitals and Clinics and the College of Engineering to CT-scan the specimens, allowing prototype replicas to be made that will be used for educational programming.



Giant short-faced bear tibia and polar bear

tibia being scanned at the UI Hospitals and Clinics



3-D computer rendering of the short-faced

bear tibia

 

 

Future research will likely involve chemical and physical analyses to determine diet and behavior as well as the age of the fossils, says Semken, a paleontologist who studies Pleistocene mammals. “These tests give us information about this individual bear and about the species as a whole,” Semken added. “Because specimens are rare each additional one adds unique information, especially one like this that comes from a new geographic area. For example, most of what's known about the diet of Arctodus comes from chemical analysis of Alaska specimens, and it should be quite interesting to compare that to Iowa.”

-Written by Media and Education Specialist Miles Dietz

Exploring the Galapagos Islands During Night at the Museum!

At six o’clock on a Friday night, twenty children and a few museum staff members gather in the lobby of Iowa Hall to talk about the Galapagos Islands, a small archipelago off the coast of Ecuador.  None of the children have been to the Galapagos, but the ongoing discussion helps create a picture of these islands.  Hot and volcanic, home to albatrosses, finches, and huge tortoises that glide across the water, it’s a far cry from a wintry Iowa evening. 

This Friday is just another Night at the Museum program, where children get a chance to learn about an exciting topic (previous months have included birds and my personal favorite, penguins) through games and discussions, having a lot of fun in the process.  This evening marks my fourth Night at the Museum – but for some children, this is their tenth program, or perhaps their first.  Some are nervous, some are chatty, but all happily discuss the islands before heading off to more activities.

In an upstairs room, the children play a game to learn the significance of different shaped beaks – which beak does the best job picking up pennies? What about beads? Or toothpicks? Some grapple with scissors, slicing the air as they try to get the blades around pennies.  Others persevere with two spoons, trying to scoop up beads without their hands.  And some happily pluck toothpicks with a pair of tweezers.  “I’ve got ten toothpicks!” one girl exclaims.  “Twelve!” calls out another.  Then we look at a slide show explaining the different beaks in nature, and the children try to call out the different birds they know – birds with “spoon beaks,” “scissor beaks,” “clothespin beaks,” and “tweezer beaks” all make the slide show. 

Later, the children eat pizza and watch The Wild Thornberrys – the show’s heroine, a girl named Eliza who can talk to animals, travels to the Galapagos – before heading up to Bird and Mammal Hall to play in the dark.  These halls, which are filled with all kinds of animals, somehow look different in the dark.  With your “miner helmet” on your head, you never know what your headlight might shine on next: an ostrich egg or a sparrow, a lion or a walrus.  Some of the children decide to run through the corridors, laughing hysterically and trying their hardest to scare their friends.  Others quietly work on scavenger hunts.  One little girl taps my shoulder – can you help me find this bird, she asks, and together we look through the different exhibits until we find the right bird.  She writes his name on her scavenger hunt triumphantly, proud to have found him.

At the end of the evening, the children try their hand at a turtle relay, in appreciation of the giant tortoises that roam the Galapagos.  They enthusiastically color their turtle shells, and then try to race around Mammal Hall while walking like a turtle – as the children have already discerned, it’s about both speed and technique.  (A good balance of the two is sure to provide a safe win!) As the judges, we hand out awards for Fastest Turtle and Most Turtle Like, which the children then take home to tack on the refrigerator.  And after the intensity of the turtle relay, the program ends with a necessary reading of Where the Wild Things Are in Iowa Hall.  Although some children know the story’s ending, it doesn’t diminish the potency of the writing or the intricacy of the illustrations, and one by one each child leaves, carrying a turtle shell, a booklet, and hopefully a picture of the Galapagos with them as they go.

Children often tend to see nature as birds and trees, or the Galapagos as a series of faraway islands, and nothing more.  At Night at the Museum, our job is to show them what nature really is – a wild, beautiful, and intricate world that surrounds us, in all its intensity, every day.

-Written by MNH Volunteer Catherine Babikian

Keeping Up with Education & Museums

I have been told several times by varying museum professional that it is the Education Coordinators who work the hardest and are stretched out the most in the museum world. At our Museum of Natural History, I have learned this rings true here also. Just sitting in the education dept's office, you can hear the phone ring and many people pop in and out working on varying projects or adding to the list of duties. The amazing piece of this is, however, that when I have seen and met with Sarah Horgen, the education coordinator, and Ashlee Gloede, the assistant education coordinator, they seem to love what they do. Sarah spoke with our Intro to Museum Studies class about her job and I could tell that she is enthusiastic about her job, even in trying to describe all that she does and in speaking of her 45+ hours work week. This semester, I've been able to speak with and work alongside Ashlee a few times and she always seems to have a smile on her face. As you recall, last month, I attended and assisted with a "Night at the Museum" event. That event was themed after archaeology and I'll never forget the magical excitement of the kids as they learned and experienced atlatls for the first time and explored the museum after hours. An event like this does not come about magically, though. This week I was able to see and assist behind the scenes in preparing for a NATM event to take place on November 18, themed on dinosaurs. Remember, all NATM events must be pre-registered and you're about to learn why.

When I arrived to help Ashlee, she had a list on a clipboard. Parents had been calling to sign-up for NATM all month. They call and Ashlee has to answer questions and remember to ask the parents for their names, child's names, requested hat color and give them all the pertinent information and payment information for the $25 entry fee. Then, a list is compiled, this time there are 22 attendees. Now, with this list, Ashlee brought me a few boxes of items. All the children receive a fun bag of goodies and a miner helmet just for attending this event. So, these bags must be compiled. I was handed bags that already had a few items in it like education information, museum event schedules and more. Then, we added one of the coolest dinosaur rings I've ever seen, a MNH pencil, postcard and a necklace. These were little take home bags to remember the fun they had that night. After all the bags were full, it was time to make the children's name tags and prepare the miner helmets. The miner helmets can normally be purchased in the museum, but each child who attends a NATM will receive one to bring back with them again and again. The miner helmets come in varying colors and the kids get to choose their color when they register. To prepare them, we had to use a tiny screwdriver and get into the light to put in batteries. Once you get the hang of it, popping open the light, putting in batteries and putting it back together isn't a hard task, but it is very time consuming. After getting them to light, the children's names get put on the back so everyone knows who gets which ones. All in all, these tasks took about an hour and a half to complete for the event. However, I was happy I took the time to help, because Ashlee was so busy that she was in and out working and meeting with other people. Had she been taking all the time out to do this project herself, who knows what else could have backed up for her. When I was finished, I brought the large box back to the Education Dept.'s office. When I asked Ashlee where to put it, she almost laughed. The office is about half the size of a classroom and has 2-3 desks. To the left sat several varying wooden dinosaur models. These, I can assume, were in preparation for Friday also. There are shelves of books, educational materials and other objects throughout their space. Clearly, you have got to be a very organized and focused, yet flexible individual to work in the education dept in a museum! Although the work is long, sometimes difficult and exhausting, I can see how rewarding this can be. A museum is an institution on the basis of educating the public. An education coordinator must make that education entertaining and unique to enhance the experiences of each patron who attends. From what I've expierienced all semester, this is well worth the time and effort and creates a fantastic time for those who attend. I hope you all attend an event put on by this dept at our museum, you will not be upset that you did! To attend any NATM event, or for questions about any event like it (including adult events) please contact them at #319-335-0606.

Visit the MNH website to learn more.

Here's information from the website about the next Night at the Museum Event about Birds taking place on December 9 from 6pm-9pm; Call to preregister your kids before all the openings are filled!:

This month:

Soar through the Museum of Natural History after dark to learn about birds from Iowa and around the world.  The group will have a fun evening of pizza, behind the scenes tours, games, and more!

Miner Helmet

Bags and trinkets

Cool Dinosaur Rings!

Frank Russell - An Iowa City Gem

In 1892, Frank Russell was a 23 year old graduate student at the University of Iowa. On his own, he went on an epic trek through northern Canada with the task of returning with musk oxen and ethnographic materials. In 1894, he returned to Iowa City to a welcoming parade of excited patrons. He met several tribes along the way such as the Dog Rib and Cree. If you'd like to read a more detailed story of his expedition, the museum's website has it here. He also wrote a book called, "Explorations in the Far North" that can be found in the University library among other book store locations.
So why am I telling you all his? Well, I was lucky enough to visit the Russell collection that is stored away in "The Vault". From my last post, I told you all about my first visit to "The Vault". On Monday, I went back in and this time, I was able to see inside the two state of the art newest cabinets. The collection within these cabinets includes some of the Frank Russell collection, some of the Philippines collection and varying other fragile artifacts. Cindy Opitz, the collections manager, led me through the drawers one by one. Ms. Opitz has been with MNH for several years now, beginning as a part-time position and eventually helped create her full time position as collections manager. Her training has mainly arisen through experience, which is essential in the collections world. She's currently finishing her formal training and attends several conferences which she says is very beneficial in learning new methods. As she puts it, her job allows her to act like a kindergartener every day as she molds new ways to protect artifacts in the collection. She loves her job and it shows in her enthusiasm with the collections.
The funnest part of the Russell collection is how eclectic it is. There are so many varying objects from varying groups. These artifacts are varying, but still somehow connect together. I almost felt like I was seeing the journey and not just a grouping of random artifacts. There were Cree trousers and Dog Rib children's rattles among the varying items. Ms. Opitz explained to me some of the items that had to be wrapped in extra tissue for protection. Some of the items were in makeshift boxes. This opened my eyes to a whole other issue in museum collections. Although these items were housed in state of the art cabinet drawers, they still needed special attention. When you open drawers, some items like bowls, arrows and other artifacts tend to rock or roll around and might touch each other. So, collections managers like Ms. Opitz, have to always be prepared to get creative and protect their items while still being able to see, examine and study them. She explained to me that these issues tend to just come up randomly as she opens a drawer to check on something for a researcher or other purpose. As with everyone else I've had a chance to speak with in the museum world, she always seems stretched thin. Ms. Optiz has one full-time collections assistant and a part-time assistant for her various work, but she still is overwhelmed with work. Currently in a three phase inventory plan, the team is overloaded with inventory work and all the regular collections duties. In the past few years, they conducted the first phase which was a quick count of every item in the collection. According to their old register book, they believed they had about 40,000 items. Once they conducted the count, they realized they actually had 115,000 items in the MNH collections! This was quite a shock to the entire MNH team and they have now moved onto furthering the inventory with updating records and eventually will be digitizing the collection into databases. An inventory plan of this magnitude takes several years to conduct, but when complete will create a very beneficial result.
After viewing The Vault's collection, we traveled up to a storage closet off Mammal Hall that houses several Philippine items and a bit more of the Russell collection. This large storage closet has several shelves on the walls, two more state of the art cabinets and high rolled textiles wrapped in tissue. This little room is a hidden treasure off of Mammal Hall that is easily passed by patrons. This tour was very interesting both because I got to visit pieces of a collection protected in the back rooms and also because I got to learn what another museum professional gets to do on a regular basis. Below are some of my favorite pieces from the collection!

Varying Arrows in a constructed box so they won't roll around.

Beautiful beaded belts from the Cree

My favorite piece: A child's rain parka made of seal bladder. Cindy Opitz said that they would wear these while going out in the ocean in kayaks to harpoon fish!

Shelves and Shelves of woven baskets actually from the Philippine collections; This was in the third floor closet.