The American Museum of Natural History

April 5 2011

April 15th on the Scholars in New York trip I attended The American Museum of Natural History. Within the museum I visited two exhibits of interest these being "The Worlds Largest Dinosaurs Exhibit" and "The Hall of Biodiversity".

"The Worlds Largest Dinosaurs" exhibit takes the visitor through the anatomy of the amazing Sauropods and their lifecycles. Sauropods ranged in size from 15 to 150 feet long with long necks and tails. The Gallery was organized in such a way to take the visitor through each aspect of their amazing anatomy that appealed to all ages with both visuals and detailed descriptions to go along. The exhibit showed how these extremely large animals breathed, ate, moved, and survived by showing the shear magnitude of these simple bodily functions. It shed light on how their heart rate, respiration, metabolism, and reproduction are linked to size.

The exhibit appealed to younger generations by having such captions as "can you imagine working your way through a salad this big?" in relation to showing how much a sauropod had to eat every day to maintain its bodily functions. Also by showing the actual size of the dinosaurs through a huge lifesize Sauropod running the distance of the exhibit as a centerpiece and a life-size heart to depict the immense size. There were also many hands on activities to entertain both young and old but with an emphasis to younger generations, with hand pumps showing the comparison of strength it took for the sauropods to expand their lungs, and microscopes showing the pore size of their egg shells. Another aspect that made me believe the exhibit was geared to young children was the set up of having an excavation in sand for fossils at the end along with a description of what archeologists do and how they find these fossils and piece them together. Here goggles and hand tools were passed out to get children involved and interested in this field of science. Scientists believe that there are fermentation tanks inside the animal where lengthy digestion could take place and another example of the visuals the exhibit had was by having glass tanks filled with leaves and brush to show the immensity of what the sauropods had to consume each day to maintain basic bodily functions that put the tons this into perspective. The interactive’s were extremely insightful putting the immense size of the animals in perspective by showing them in comparison to things that are familiar such as our own heart or instead of just listing off how much they consumed each day showing the visual representation of it.

The "Hall of Biodiversity" appeals to all ages by serving as an amazing diorama of the amazing biodiversity of the Earth. One element of organization is the Spectrum of Life exhibit diversity of life resulting from 3.5 billion years of evolution organized into 28 groups along a 100-foot-long wall with over 1,500 specimens and models ranging from microorganisms to terrestrial and aquatic species. The exhibit is directed to a higher level of education but still appeals to all ages as being a thing of wonder. The wall was covered with life-size replicas of the different organisms spanning the 3.5 million years and showing the steps of evolution in species. The exhibit was lacking in interactive components with the main highlights being from the amazing dioramas set up on the wall and in glass cases around the rooms. The exhibit was meant to be an observing exhibit rather than that of "The Worlds Largest Dinosaurs", which aimed at being interactive and attention grabbing to appeal to the younger generations. The exhibit was appropriate for the type of information it was trying to give forth.

Two pieces of research that I found as new to the museum were by Scientists Xu Liang and John Maisey. Xu Liang from AMNH paleontology found that 110 million years ago close to the pacific rim, tectonic activity directly killed many animals and birds and the release of poisonous gas into the air lead to many preserved species that he has now discovered. Another piece of new research is by John Maisey from the University of Texas, using new CT scanning techniques to reconstruct shark anatomy from fossils still in rock and can show the braincases of sharks. The 3D reconstructions of fossil structures have changed over time and new methods are being founded to improve validity.

I had an amazing time at the Museum even though I have been there before. Each time I go reveals new information and pieces that I missed and I hope to be able to return to further my exploration of this novel museum.


Last modified: 25 April 2011