Event name: American Museum of Natural History
Event time and place: November 16th, 2024 New York, New York
It’s not often I find myself awake before the sun comes up. And yet, there I was, walking to Centreville hall in the dark at 5:15 AM. It was early morning November 16th and I swear not even the birds were up. But still, I made my way into the lobby and found a seat on the couch. Soon, more and more people found their way into the lobby, Dr. Merck holding a bag of donuts included. Finally, my friends from class come out of their rooms to join the chaos ensuing in the lobby. This chaos is actually known as “roll-call”. Once everyone was all accounted for, we made our way to the Maryland coach bus and found ourselves on the way to beautiful New York, New York.
After plenty of napping and a little bit of homework, we finally made it to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Here is where we started our adventure back in time to learn about all sorts of different fossils kept in the AMNH. This museum is dedicated to exploring the natural world, human cultures, and the universe through its extensive collection of artifacts and scientific research. Now, as a Science and Global Change student, I was directed to learn more about some of the fossil halls in the museum with the help of our fearless tour guides Dr. Merck and Dr. Holtz.
A group of friends and I decided to start off with the tour given by Dr. Merck, which was a tour of the Hall of Vertebrate Origins. The first thing Dr. Merck pointed out was that the fossil halls were designed in such a way that when walking through them the viewer was actually walking through a life-size cladogram. A tourist can follow the lines on the ground to walk through the history of evolution all in one go. This allows for tourists to see the actual changes of vertebrates over time with the help of real fossils and plenty of informative plaques. A tourist can walk through the exhibit to watch as bone structure slowly changes to give rise to different physical features. There was a very well-done model that showed how the bones of jawless vertebrates shifted over time into bones that could be used as a movable jaw. The museum also does a good job representing these changes with some of their graphics. One of which shows the homologies of the bones of the forelimb in different vertebrates. Designers color coordinated the different bones shared by different animals to visually show their similarities and how they all evolved from a common ancestor. There are also plenty of enlarged models that allow viewers to feel and interact with some of these changes. For example, there were the bones of different fish that were modeled and enlarged to give the viewer a method of actually feeling out some of the changes that came over time during their evolution. However, since the halls were designed this way in the 1990s, new information has come up that actually goes against the already laid out cladogram. In this way, some parts of the halls are actually out of date with current knowledge.
One example of this out of date information actually comes from the placement of turtles in the hall. When the exhibit was made in the ‘90s, it was believed turtles were the first sauropsids and that the pareiasaurs were the turtles closest ancestor. However, later research found that turtles are not directly descended from pareiasaurs and that turtles are more closely related to some of the relatives of birds and crocodilians. This would mean that their exhibit should be located closer to some of the dinosaur fossils in the other halls. If the museum was to relay the current information, they might want to create a revised space in the Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians so they can move turtles into that revised area. However, this might be hard just because of the fact that the museum uses pretty much every square inch of the building. There is not much space in these halls for much movement of exhibits and if they were to make space for the turtles in the reptile hall, they might have to move one of the exhibits in that hall to compensate for the relocation. This would take significant reconstruction and surely cost a lot of money.
One of the interesting things that Dr. Merck pointed out was the homologous limb structures found between lobe-finned fish and humans. Lobe-finned fish actually have bones in their fins very similar to the bones found in humans and other tetrapods. The bones in their fins close to their body very nearly resemble bones like the radius, ulna, and humorous found in humans. This is fascinating because it suggests that early tetrapods evolved from lobe-finned fish like the coelacanth. This means that humans most likely evolved from these lobe-finned fish very long ago. Another interesting thing Dr. Merck pointed out was the convergent evolution of the ichthyosaur, mosasaur, and plesiosaur. This convergent evolution was one in which reptiles on land adapted to once again living in the water. All of these species came from different reptiles on land and evolved to be more suited towards living in the water. It is an interesting thing to look at because much of the hall before this was focused on how organisms evolved to live outside the water, however these couple species decided they wanted to go back in the water after ages of evolving out of it.
When we finished up with the tour of the hall with Dr. Merck, it was time for lunch. For lunch we actually walked a couple blocks down the street to a pizza place called Made in New York Pizza. Here my friends and I each got different slices of pizza including some classic cheese, a Sicilian slice, and even some margherita pizza. We did not want to be late for our next tour so we ate quickly and rushed back to the museum to join Dr. Holtz on his dinosaur tour.
We started off in the room with the Titanosaur. Here, Dr. Holtz was finishing up a quick dinosaur lesson with some of the kids in the hall who were taking a field trip. When he finished up, he prompted us to take a look at the huge dinosaur behind him. There sat the massive titanosaur, so big that they couldn’t even fit the skull in the same room as the rest of the skeleton. Dr. Holtz pointed out a lot of different things about the fossils found in the dinosaur halls. One of which that I thought was particularly interesting was that the 86 foot-long apatosaurus could grow to its full size in just 20 years. This was just fascinating because my friends and I are all almost 20 years old ourselves, and even the 5 of us put together aren't even as big as the apatosaurus. The amount that this dinosaur must have had to eat in a day is insane and it definitely shows. I also thought it was interesting how triceratops all have different horns and ornamentation. Dr. Holtz likened it to the deer antlers of today. They are all the same species, they just have certain parts that grow in different fascinating shapes.
As mentioned before, the halls were built in the 1990s and not every detail is up to date with current knowledge. As such, Dr. Holtz pointed out some of the inaccuracies of these dinosaur halls throughout our tour. The one I thought was interesting was that scientists believe that the stegosaurus actually had spikes on its tail facing outwards. However, in the museum the spikes are mounted upright on the stegosaurus tail. To convey this new information, the museum should reorient the spikes on the tail to face outwards. But, reorienting the spikes could cause a few problems. The most obvious being that when moving the spikes and trying to remount them, they might become damaged. In fear of damaging the spikes, they might be better just being kept as is, especially since it isn’t a very huge detail.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex used in Jurassic Park
When we were done exploring some of the history of dinosaurs and fantasizing over what it would be like if they still roamed the Earth, we moved onto our self-guided tour. For this one, we chose to look at the Hall of Gems and Minerals. When looking through all of the minerals, it was interesting to see how they organized the hall. Overall, the minerals were divided into groups based on the environments they were formed in, such as igneous, hydrothermal, and weathering. There was also a section that organized different minerals by their chemical complexity. I got to see how different elements on the periodic table formed all kinds of different minerals. Another cool exhibit was the Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry exhibit. In this exhibit, there was tons of iconic jewelry from different famous hip-hop artists ranging from Biggie to Nicki Minaj. I specifically got to see Slick Rick’s diamond crown and eyepatch. I was especially enthralled with this piece because Slick Rick is one of my favorite artists. The crown was made by Tanya Jones and the diamond eyepatch was made in 2012 by Jacob & Co in 2012. The plaque presented with the pieces wasn’t very big so the information was limited. Seeing as it was found in the Hall of Gems and Minerals, I would have loved to learn about what kinds of diamonds those actually were and I would have been interested in learning more about how it was made. Although the room was packed to the brim with different jewelry, I think they could have used the space available on the different plaques a little bit better. If they cut out some of the empty space in unnecessarily long paragraph breaks, they could have added a sentence or two about the kinds of diamonds or how the crown and eyepatch were manufactured.
The second item that really caught my eye was the giant slab of petrified wood found on the back wall of the hall. This piece of petrified wood was discovered in Madras, Oregon and is believed to be about 33-35 million years old. The plaques talk about how the tree was buried and protected from decay. Also, being in an area with volcanic activity, the ash actually enriched the soil with silica which materialized the wood, petrifying it. I wish I knew more about how they actually found the wood. Like how much of the tree was properly preserved in its original state before they cut it into a slab. They could add this information in by putting an extra picture on the already big plaque found under the petrified wood.
The third item I took a close look at was the Singing Stone, a huge block of blue azurite and green malachite that was found in Bisbee, Arizona in 1891. The stone was dubbed the singing stone because of the high pitched noises it would make as the humidity changed. This was because its porous structure allowed for the absorption and release of moisture. In releasing the trapped moisture, the stone would seem to sing. I wish they had more information about why this stone was actually mined. Were the miners looking for gold or silver, or were they actually on the hunt for something like this singing stone. They have enough space on the plaque to add a couple sentences about why miners were digging in this region and they could also talk about if it was something they were actually looking for while mining.
The Signing Stone
As we made our way out of the mineral hall, we found ourselves at the last stop of the excursion to the AMNH. This last stop was none other than a show in the planetarium. As we found our seats in the circular theater, we were greeted with a beautiful projection overhead. The show was titled Worlds Beyond Earth and was all about how many of the different planets in our solar system were formed and how they changed over time. The main theme throughout the show was that even if all the planets started the same and came from the same materials, they all grew up to be very different. The show highlighted some of the many discoveries made about the planets in our solar system throughout the many years of aerospace exploration. They mentioned things like the composition of the planets, like how planets closest to the sun are made of rock and metal while those further away are completely gaseous. They also presented information about the different planets’ orbits and their different weathering events. For example, they talk about Mars’ canyons and how there could be signs of water previously being on the surface eroding the landscape. They even went so far as to talk about the ability of a planets’ magnetic field to block solar winds and how that is one of the crucial factors as to why the Earth can sustain life.
Now, pretty much everything presented on screen was completely animated or computer generated. However, most of it seems to come from actual observations from different satellites and missions sent to these different planets. Even if the visuals were designed by humans, they are based off the pictures that different spacecraft were actually able to take. For example, they had information about the Cassini spacecraft which was able to gather information about Saturn and one of its moons Titan. The images presented were animated, but they were based on the real data collected by the craft. Overall, the film was very well made and thoroughly researched. Even if artists were creating the images seen on the screen, they were thoroughly researched and much of the information shown was based on actual research.
Throughout the show, I was fascinated with all the new things I was learning. For example, I didn’t know that one of the main reasons Mars couldn’t support life was because of its absence of a magnetic field. It was also interesting to learn about how Titan actually has a surface carved from wind and rain. However, the rain is not actually water, but rather liquid methane. Overall, the show was very interesting and I was always finding more and more I didn’t actually know about our solar system.
As we exited the planetarium, we came to the end of our excursion. A full day of learning about the history of our planet. Whether it be learning about the history of life on Earth or the history of the Earth itself, we were given a new perspective on how to view the world. This interactive museum is one that was built to inform those who come about anything and everything related to natural history. They cater to a young audience with many different interactive models. Kids often get bored reading the plaques and listening to tours, so having these real rocks you can touch and different models of bones can help enthrall kids of all ages and get them actually interested in learning. The museum also offers free guided tours. This can help give an opportunity to people who are blind to actually experience some of the things offered at the museum by being able to listen to people describe the things displayed. These guided tours are also in different languages, allowing an even wider range of people to experience all the learning opportunities at the museum. Finally, the museum offers free wheelchair rentals and is completely wheelchair accessible with the use of elevators and ramps. This allows for even more people to make their way through the museum and learn new things about the history of the Earth.
(From Left to Right) Violet, Me, Amzah, Rajiv, Renzo
After we were done at the museum, Amzah and I got a chance to explore the city. We wandered Central Park, picked up some bagels, and took plenty of pictures in Times Square. After learning about where we came from as humans at the museum, we could now wander the city and see exactly where we have come. It is crazy to think that all the buildings around us came from nothing. The Earth was formed four and a half billion years ago and since then life evolved from single celled organisms all the way to the humans around us today. All that to say that the trip to New York allowed me to fully experience the journey of humanity from our distant beginnings to the bustling city that stands today. Walking through Central Park and enjoying the city’s landmarks after being to the museum allowed me to feel a deeper connection to the past and present. The trip not only allowed me to learn about the history of the natural world and human history, but also about the remarkable ways in which we’ve shaped our environment and culture. It was a great excursion that allowed me to appreciate the world around me in a whole new way.