This weekend we are celebrating our Earth Sciences collection and research. Here’s a sample of a gorgeous Quartz (amethyst variety) featured in the central rotunda.
amethyst crystals photo source : Lorie Pierce
More information on rock, mineral and space related activities to follow.
It’s the busy time of year for school trips. The main challenge is to get them all in through a confined space, seat them at lunch and try to make sure everyone has an awesome experience. 
buses nose to nose in bus lane photo source : Lorie Pierce
lockers for coats, hats, backpacks & lunches photo source : Lorie Pierce
school lunchroom – the overflow are seated upstairs photo source : Lorie Pierce
On this May day over 1,000 students attended the museum – mainly between 10 am and 2 pm. An efficient group organizing strategy and sufficient well-trained staff are essential to make everything run smoothly. We use walkie-talkies at key locations and entry staff have printouts of which classes are in the building, when they arrive, leave and have their lunch break. High schoolers can leave the building for lunch (using the school entrance). Public school aged students eat in the school lunchroom but sometimes head outdoors in warmer weather to an adjacent park.
Our museum’s Ornithology Collection now houses 144,000 specimens (eggs, skins, skeletons, blood and tissues). International in scope, the collection received an early anchoring donation in 1940 from the bequest of the 32,000 bird collection of James Henry Fleming. This Toronto native had a house extension built to hold his collection. Potentially one of the earliest documented cases of OCD – obsessive (ornithological) collection disorder. See Fleming’s bio at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Henry_Fleming
Collected specimens date from 1812 to recent acquisitions. Most of the recent donations are birds killed in migration when hitting tall office towers. (see Fatal Light Awareness Program at www.flap.org)
The museum also has the skeleton of the Moa from New Zealand, the most complete Dodo skeleton existing and the Great Auk which was collected in 1830 (see photo of mount). All of these species are now extinct.
Great Auk, related to Puffins and extinct since 1844 photo source : ROM
Increasingly, additions to our collection are blood samples from ‘catch-band-release’ programs and blood/tissue samples from birds who died from injury (usually vehicle or building collisions). DNA research is causing modifications to some classifications. For example, falcons are now considered (due to DNA study of blood/tissue samples) to be more closely related to parrots and woodpeckers than to hawks.
This is who I will be hanging out with shortly.
Ashur-nasir-pal II was king of Assyria from 883 to 859 BC. wikipedia.com
Ashurnasirpal II photo source : British Museum
Explorers have always been my heroes. I remember the sounds of their names when I was a kid … Vasco da Gama, Yuri Gagarin, Margaret Mead, Christopher Columbus, Buzz Aldrin, Robert Ballard. And now I have a present day hero (and a Canadian) ISS Commander Chris Hadfield. Following his tweets from the Space Station, I got to see our world in a real time clarity, enlightened by his poetic (yet less than 140 character) descriptions. A few samples of his recent photography.
Earth’s atmosphere photo source : Chris Hadfield
Dublin Ireland at night photo source : Chris Hadfield
Where Chris and I were both born – southern Ontario Canada photo source : Chris Hadfield
meteor crater in Chad, Africa photo source : Chris Hadfield
Mexico USA border photo source : Chris Hadfield
Sahara Desert, Africa photo source : Chris Hadfield
The experience of following his tweets has really sold me on Twitter.
Our museum recently hosted an event with South Asian community partners. Music, dance, storytelling, calligraphy and rangoli (a form of folk art).
Rangoli are decorative designs made on living room and courtyard floors during Hindu festivals typically consisting of bright colors. They are meant to be sacred welcoming areas for the Hindu deities. The ancient symbols have been passed down through the ages, from each generation to the next, keeping both the art form and the tradition alive. The patterns are typically created with materials including colored rice, dry flour, (colored) sand or even flower petals. source : wikipedia.com
design #2
Children used crayon, coloured pencils, markers or paint to colour the designs. Then added glitter and glitter glue. Not my favourite materials to work with in a space immediately adjacent to galleries but the glittery results were spectacular.
Also, since paint and glue take a long time to dry, there needed to be a space to store the artwork so the families could come back for it. It was necessary to search for an extra table and plastic coverings to accommodate the fifty 8 x 10 inch masterpieces left for hours to dry. Each child added his/her name so the owner could find it later.
If you use this idea in programming, I would recommend the addition of information about rangoli art and the materials commonly used in creating these amazing floor designs.
My museum is double barreled, including collections from both Ancient Cultures and Natural History. I tend to lean towards the natural world myself so I am very aware of the contributions to our undersatnding of it made by David Attenborough, who is 87 years old today!
David Attenborough photo source : imdb.com
Let’s all celebrate this man’s amazing life and legacy. Especially his documentary series, First Life, which explains early life before the dinosaurs.
There is an excellent series on our museum’s blog regarding the development of galleries.
http://www.rom.on.ca/en/blog/how-to-display-the-pastpart-3-curatorial-perspectives
Gallery of Chinese Architecture photo source : Lorie Pierce
Only one major gallery, the Gallery of Early Life, is yet to be developed …hopefully by the end of next year. But there are many tweaks to existing galleries and deficiencies to address that will be ongoing. Gallery development takes a team to decide what stories to tell, what artifacts to use and how to put them into a meaningful context.
I am a big believer in maps. It is how I organize my world and I personally look for them within gallery spaces. Geographical maps, timelines, any visual means to help connect the objects to time and place.
Had to show you these wonderful puppet designs by the Studio Team (headed by Chris M.) for the Early Life Weekend. I will definitely be adopting these designs for the Cambrian ‘Anomalocaris’, the Ordovician through to Devonian ‘Eurypterid’ and the all-time success story of the ancient seas, the Cambrian to Permian ‘Trilobite’.
Anomalocaris front photo source : Lorie Pierce
Anomalocaris back with paper bag puppet sleeve photo source : Lorie Pierce
Learn more about this T-Rex of the Cambrian ocean at this website :
http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php
Eurypterid front photo source : Lorie Pierce
Eurypterid back photo source : Lorie Pierce
Known as Sea Scorpions, these were actually chelicerates who are now extinct and have no descendants. All its legs for swimming, walking and eating are attached under its head. We have one from New York State in our museum which is over 6 feet tall.
Eurypterids, sometimes known as sea scorpions, were predatory marine arthropods (joint-legged animals without a backbone) that lacked mineralized hard parts. The huge, claw-bearing pterygotids were preserved only under exceptional conditions and mostly in shallow lagoonal settings.This composite specimen of the giant eurypterid Acutiramus was restored from several matching fragments found at a single locality in New York State. Pieces of smaller specimens occur in the Silurian rocks of southern Ontario. Location: New York Collection Date: 2001 AD source : rom.on.ca
Trilobite front photo source : Lorie Pierce
Trilobite back photo source : Lorie Pierce
Trilobites were amazing. They were one of the most successful animals that ever lived on our planet, lasting 300 million years as a species until dying off with 80 – 90 % of everything else at the end of the Permian Era (250 mya). They also make the most beautiful fossils and are iconic emblems of the ancient oceans.
Learn about the Trilobite Beds on Mt.Stephen in Yoho, B.C. at this website : http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/history/discoveries/01-first.php
Since we have a lot of construction paper and lunch bags tucked away in our craft cabinet, I think this would be the idea craft to add into our Around the Museum event. Thursday is our prep meeting and we will have a lot of pieces to cut out.
Lorie at Early Life touch table photo source : Kiron Mukherjee
Caught in action doing what I love. Telling people about life in the oceans before the dinosaurs. In particular, the Middle Cambrian life found in the amazing fossil deposits of the Burgess Shale in Yoho, B.C. Above me a case with rope lava from Hawaii, amethyst geode from Brazil and a Paloma Picasso gem necklace. On the table, a fossil coral, the papercraft Anomalocaris and pieces from the Parks Canada Burgess Shale kit. I’m holding the knitted nautiloid (see previous post).
