Me and my friend at the Museum of Natural History in D.C.
While visiting the National Museum of Natural History in D.C., I got the opportunity to explore several different exhbits, all of which depicted the impacts of climate change on several different areas.
Cellphones: Unseen Connections Exhibit
The first place I went in the museum was the Cellphones: Unseen Connections exhibit. There were several different presentation techniques that were used to convey the message of this exhbit. The first was an interactive game where you, as the player, would be responsible for repairing a phone. You would have to perform tasks like replacing a screen, drying out a water damaged phone, etc. I think this was an effective presentation technique because it showed what went into repairing a phone sufficiently. The next presentation technique was a video about getting a new phone, and how as soon as the novelty wears off, you are pressured to upgrade your phone. The video talks about how unsustainable this is. The last presentation technique was a flow chart depicting what happens when you trade in your phone. It's effective because it shows how phones can be reused (sustainably) if you trade them in.
The exhibit says a lot about the environmental issues of cellphone technology. For one, it talks about what goes into obtaining the materials to build phones. Components that your phone uses are mined through explosions, and are extremely unsustainable as they actively damage the environment. As one panel read, everything in your phone is a finite resource. If you break your phone, your first though should be to repair it rather than buying a completely new phone. Also, some people like to stockpile old phones instead of trading them in, which is the more sustainable option. The exhibit depicts this information through infographics, panels, statistics, and more.
The exhibit also talks about the technological and social impacts of cellphones, and conveys that information in several different ways. One social impact is the pressure to upgrade your phone. This was done through videos showing how advertisements encourage people to buy new phones, through consumerism, when they don't need them. Another social issue is stockpiling old devices. This is done through an infographic. This is a social issue because people have a hard time giving up their devices. A technological impact of cellphones is the amount of things that have been created through the direct inventions of smartphones. This is done using a diagram. Not everything about the inventions of smartphones is a negative thing, and we've progressed a long way since it was first created.
Climate Change in the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins
I chose three topics that were discussed in this section, and how humans have influenced these topics through time. The first was a section where you could walk in the footprints of humans ancestors. In this section, there is a figure depicting Lucy, which is the earliest human skeleton found. This section brings us back to the beginning of our existance and how we've progressed since then. Another topic was a presentation of human achievements, like walking upright, making tools, learning how to communicate, etc. It shows how humans have evolved not just physically, but mentally as well. The final topic I explored was through an excavation site with bones and fossils of and from early humans. The designers showed this section to highlight what tools and natural resources early humans used to survive. It also shows how we've progressed through history.
Some critics suggest this exhbit de-emphasizes the human impact on the environment and the climate, and I would have to agree with them. The focus of this hall definitely wasn't on the environment and climate change. It was just about the history of humans and how we grew and evolved as a species.
Climate Change & Human Impact in the Sant Ocean Hall
I first started at "The Changing Ocean" part of the exhibit. One of the videos wasn't working, but the other video discussed information about horseshoe crabs in the Delaware Bay. I found the content of the video to be understandable by a general visitor, but maybe not to someone who doesn't already have prior knowledge about the environment and ecosystems.
I went onto the "Global Ocean Video", whose information was provided on a 3D, globe-shaped video screen format. It talked about several different subjects, one of which was what changes the planet Earth went through, long before any life inhabited it. It talked about how Earth started as a ball of fire, but eventually cooled down from the steam released from volcanoes and icy asteroids that crashed into Earth. These factors eventually led to Earth being covered in oceans. The video also talked about the ocean's imapct on climate change. Like how phytoplankton is responsible for absorbing a lot of the Earths carbon dioxide from the sun and turning it into oxygen. The spherical video showed all the changes to the Earth and also highlighted where organisms like phytoplankton typically lived. I think the format of this spherical video was very useful because the visuals told an entire story while keeping the audience engaged.
Climate Change in the David H. Koch Hall of Fossils - Deep Time
In this section of the museums, there were several different pylons featuring miniature reconstructions of life and environments at different points in geologic time. I found two pylons that I wish to discuss. The first pylon was titled "The Grasslands Far and Wide". It was set where modern day Nebraska is. There were a lot of grassland animals in this pylon depicted a dryer environment, one that looked a lot more like a desert rather than where modern day Nebraska is. The CO2 levels in this pylon were 50% higher than now, and the temperature was up 5-12 degrees Fahrenheit, and the global sea level was 330ft higher than it is today. Another pylon was titled "Giant Shadows on the Landscape", and was where modern day Colorado was more than 150 million years ago. The environment looked almost like a jungle and seemed very warm. CO2 levels were 4 times higher in the pylon than they are today. The temperature was up by 15-17 degrees Fahrenheit, and the sea level was 330ft higher than it is today.
Finally, I followed these panels of information along the walls of this section, which described climate changes in the past and present. One part of the section asks why, if Earth's climate has been so much warmer in the past, why is climate change such a major issue now? The panel says that humans evolved in a colder world, and the problem is that the globe is rapidly warming due to human activity. The figures depict this amount with a graph.