I participated in the fieldtrip to the Library of Congress and the National Air and Space Museum on December 6, 2008. The exhibit we saw at the Library of Congress was called "Exploring the Early Americas;" it displayed maps documents, artifacts, and artwork from the Jay I. Kislak Collection. The exhibition was broken into three sections: Pre-Contact America, Explorations and Encounters, and the Aftermath of the Encounter.
One of the displays from the Pre-Contact America section was about urban landscapes. Small ceramic models of the houses of the Nayarit people were on display. The houses were decorated in a very simple way, and showed people playing musical instruments. These models were made in West Mexico between the years of 200 BC to 300 AD.
The next display was called Competition for Spanish Florida. There was a map, which was drawn at the end of the sixteenth century, of Florida from the Chesapeake Bay region to New Mexico. The map had many markings, and the coastline looked similar to that of today’s maps. England and France had tried to gain control of this area from the Spanish. The French eventually gained the Louisiana Territory, and the British gained Georgia.
One of the other maps that I saw was a chart of the Pacific Coast done by Francisco Pizarro. It outlined the coast of Central and South America showing the region from Guatemala to Peru and the Galapagos Islands. It was actually one of the first maps to show the Galapagos Islands. The map had many lines drawn across it and pictures, specifically of birds and buildings which represented cities.
The second part of the trip was to the National Air and Space Museum. The exhibit we saw was Space: Our Journey to Our Future. This exhibit focuses on space exploration missions, some which are real and some which are not. The first project that I saw was called Ares: Back to the Moon. It is a NASA sponsored program to send American astronauts back into space by 2014 and back to the Moon by 2020. NASA’s plan is to build a structure on the Moon to support long-term human presence, learn about resources there, and get ready for a future journey to Mars.
Another project was for a robotic spacecraft called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) which is scheduled to launch in late 2008. This craft will orbit the Moon for at least one year looking at safe landing spots and lunar resources. It will also map the surface, specifically the Moon’s polar regions.
A third project was SOFIA, which stands for Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. SOFIA has a 44100 pound telescope that will study the stars from a 747 airliner. The telescope is designed to capture infrared light, study new solar systems, and identify molecules, comets, asteroids, and other phenomena.
In conclusion, at the Library of Congress, the exhibits were more sophisticated than those at the Air and Space Museum. Those at the Library were focused towards an older group of people interested in history and education. On the other hand, the displays at the National Air and Space Museum were geared toward a younger crowd and were more fun and interactive. Both styles of conveying the information were effective in their own way.
The nature of exploration has certainly changed a lot over the course of human history. The information at the two exhibits shows how exploration has changed in technology, motives, and scale. From the exhibit at the Library of Congress, you can see that maps were drawn by hand, and ships were used to travel to foreign lands. As time has progressed, there have been many changes, and now computers and technology are a very important aspect in exploration.
Library of Congress
