I made my visit to the American Museum of Natural History on the 28th of November, 2014 at approximately 11 ‘o clock in the morning. I expected a quiet visit, as it was the morning after Thanksgiving, and people should have been sleeping off the turkey.

That was not the case. There was a lot of people. However, it was all the better for me as there was more to work off of when I sat down and began to observe my first group of humans.

Forest Elephants and the Saline

Collected Data:

Time Frame: 15 minutes

Amount of people passing by the exhibit: 116

Those who interacted with the exhibit: ~50

Types of interaction: Reading the text docent, reading the book, looking at the display, watching the video.

Phrases Overheard:

“Oh, oh! There’s animals back there!”

“Look, look. I found a snake!”

Overall findings:

The results of my observation are a little bleak. Only a little less than half the people who passed by the exhibit gave it more than a glance. I noticed those who took more time were the parents with children aged 3~9. Those in large groups, and people on their phones were the ones who spent the least time at the exhibit.

Research and Outreach

This exhibit was located on the far end of the hall, and it consisted mainly of a map on the wall, two interactive computer screens, and a video playing on the opposite wall about over-fishing.

Collected Data:

Time frame: 15 minutes + a little extra

Amount of people passing by the exhibit: 92

Those who interacted with the exhibit: ~10

Types of interaction: Reading the text docent, taking a picture, looking at the display, watching the video.

Phrases Overheard:

“I would like to go to the jungle and study the animals”- elderly woman

“Oh my god. Aww.”- Middle aged mother commenting on video.

Overall findings:

This is perhaps one of the most important parts of the entire Hall of Biodiversity, but the amount of people who walked away from this exhibit more educated is far to little. Most people lose interest when they discovered that there was a lot of reading involved in this exhibit, but I don’t blame them because the writing is small, and there is a lot of it. Generally, this is a very underrated exhibit.

Analysis:

Just by slowing down and observing, I learned a lot about people, the faults of the exhibits, and also how they can be improved.  One would expect the child to be easily distracted by everything, but often times, it’s the parents who are pushing the kids away from the exhibits. I think parents often have an itinerary planned out in their heads, and are always worried about how much more of the museum they have to get through, so much that they would ask their kids to stop reading something just so that they can move on. Adults have a great effect on the interests of children, as I could see that those who spent the most time at both exhibits consisted of an adult with great patience, and a child with a curiosity, both extremely necessary for the interaction to be longer than 10 seconds.  However, another factor that plays into the patron’s interaction with the display is how easy the material is to understand. I noticed that the displays with more reading and smaller font tend to scare people away, as the most popular interaction was simply to look and see.

I don’t want to speak poorly of the Hall of Biodiversity, as it is a great exhibit, but I can’t help but think that it could have been designed better. Standing at the two ends of the hall, I observed that the side with the biodiversity is a lot brighter than the side with the conservation displays. Human beings are very much attracted to light, and most people gravitate towards the better lit wall of organisms. Another thing that unbalances the amount of traffic is that the great “blue whale room” is also located on the side with the eye-candy, and it’s incredibly easy to get side-tracked when faced with such a tourist magnet. By the time people leave the whale room, they are probably far behind schedule, and seeing as there is another exit at the end of the hall, they take it. Sadly passed over is the dimly lit wall of research and conservation, which is given a glance, deemed uninteresting, and forsaken. What an unfortunate fate, because the answers to keeping all the beautiful and interesting organisms lie within the dark recesses.

Final words:

Something that occurred to me as I was browsing the Hall of Biodiversity was that there was no focus on extinct animals. Long-gone animals like the Dodo bird, were placed amongst the living animals, as if it still existed today. By placing living and extinct species together, the exhibit leads people to subconsciously believe that everything is okay. If I were in the position to do so, I would put all the extinct and endangered animals on the side with the conservation displays, separate from the “safe” animals, to prompt a visual understanding that biodiversity is very closely connected to conserving the environment. That way, people would be more willing to walk on the other side of the rainforest, and actually learn about the effects of their actions on this earth, and how they might change.