American Museum of Natural History excursion:

November 11th 2023

For this excursion, we traveled to New York and visited the American Museum of Natural History on November 11, 2023. In the museum, we visited three different exhibits. Dr. Holtz and Dr. Merck guided us through tours of two halls of the museum while the last hall was explored on our own.

The first guided tour I attended was Dr. Holtz’s tour. In this tour, he spoke about the dinosaur world, what dinosaurs are, paleontology in general, and the evolution of dinosaurs. The first thing he showed us was the largest skeletal dinosaur found in Argentina called the titanosaur. With this dinosaur, he talked about how paleontologists gradually find parts of dinosaurs until it is put together to reveal one big dinosaur. At one point, he also spoke about the evolution of dinosaur characteristics and how some dinosaurs started as smaller ones, but due to the need for survival, would evolve to taller dinosaurs that could reach higher. The same thing happened to dinosaurs when it came from evolving into eating plants. We were also shown other dinosaurs such as the Pachycephalosaurus and the Ornithomimid. At each dinosaur exhibit, there were often plaques or signs stating the dinosaur’s name, a summary of how they lived, and other interesting facts to learn more about them. There were many sauropods, so there were many signs giving an overall summary of the types of sauropods found and what they would have looked like. One thing that I thought was cool was in one exhibit of a dinosaur that typically hunts other dinosaurs, you could see the dinosaur statue posed to look like it was following tracks as if it was on the hunt. After being immersed in the exhibit, I believe that the hall is for all ages, but is not aimed at people who are highly educated in dinosaurs. It has very short summaries and descriptions, so it is really just to get an overview and more visual presentation, not for specifics. However, although I say that, it is also not for young children because the words on the signs may be too complex for them to understand.The exhibit had many interactive components such as models of feet you could touch and computers that you could watch a video on. I think that the interactive components were effective at conveying information you wouldn’t typically get from just searching up info because it shows physical characteristics. You won’t be able to really experience how the skin of a dinosaur feels from reading an article. There were also a couple times in the tour where Dr. Holtz told us that information was wrong. One instance was that the sign in front of sauropods used to be wrong, but was eventually changed in 2015. Another was that the legs of the tyrannosaurus were inaccurate and never changed in the model. I think these could both easily be changed by adding a sign explaining the discrepancies.

The second guided tour I attended was Dr. Merck’s tour. In this tour, he spoke about the Natural World and led us through the Hall of Vertebrate Origins. He explained many things, such as how vertebrate fossils come from being pancaked into a fossil after dying, how jawless Ostracoderms were the first vertebrates ever found, and the ancient relatives of modern day species. We also went over lissamphibians and how they were lizards and water that came from water but eventually moved on to land. This hall had a lot more detailed models of vertebrates, but still contained many signs with explanations for the different vertebrates. Although there were many visual models, there were not really any interactive components here. I think that this exhibit is for a similar level of education as before, but may be for those that are even more advanced. Because of the lack of interactive models, I think it could be boring for some people, so older students would be the main ones to find this exhibit interesting. I think it would be more helpful if there were interactive models to touch like in the last exhibit. Dr. Mertz did also talk about how the plesiosaurus picture in the exhibit was out of date because it was painted in the 19th century. We have discovered that this species has a top fin, but the painting did not contain one.

The self guided tour my friends and I attended was the Hall of Asian Mammals on the museum’s second floor. This exhibit contained species that are specific only to countries in Asia. Although the main animal showcased was the Asian Elephant in the middle, it was smaller than the version from Africa. The hall also showed many other species such as leopards, black bucks, swamp deer, and tigers. The animals were represented in a visual way with the animals posed to look as if they are alive and also placed in something that looks very similar to what the actual habitat would look like. This is what the hall mostly looked like, and the signs were very small and only next to the exhibits. Because of this, I think it is easier for younger kids to understand. There are mostly just models to look at and because it is mostly visual, anyone could easily see what’s going on. I think having more interactive models is the only thing that could be done to improve this.