Overall, my experience at the Hall of Biodiversity was great! When I first walked into the room, I didn’t know what to expect, but then I looked up at the ceiling and saw beautiful displays of different kinds of animals and flora that instantly caught my attention. Then, when going closer and actually exploring these different displays, the hall itself taught me so much about conservation, endangered species, the Dzanga-Sangha Rain Forest, and what I can do to help the conversation effort.

The two displays that I chose to observe were The Dzanga-Sangha Rain Forest, mainly focusing on the section “Forest Elephants and The Saline”, and the Resource Center, mainly standing around the “Laws and Regulations” board. The “Forest Elephants and The Saline” display focused the movement of forest elephants into the Rain Forest in search of food, how these elephants differ from the savanna elephants, and the large population of these forest elephants that live in the Dxanga-Sangha Rain Forest. It was mainly a general display of information, most likely used to inform museumgoers about these animals and give them a broad understanding about the topic. The “Laws and Regulations” display seemed like a more biased argument that tried to inspire citizens to take a stand in environmental laws, inform them on what has already been done, and show the different ways they could get involved in the effort as a whole.

We were lucky enough to go to the museum on the day that both elementary schools and high schools decided to have field trips there as well. This gave a lot of insight in how both younger children and teenagers react with displays. When observing the “Forest Elephants and The Saline” display, there were many children floating in and out of the display. I think there was some incentive to stay there because they were answering questions on their worksheets, but there were some students that were really absorbed in the material. Some children flipped through the little booklets to answer the questions they had for class, while two boys stood for about ten minutes watching the videos that were on display. The little children had a tendency to peer over the glass walls and try to look at what was on the ground. I honestly believe that this display shows the information it conveys effectively. There are visual representations of the rain forest, videos displaying information and booklets that you could flip through to read. One of the boys who was focusing on the video even went to his teacher afterwards and started asking information about the display. This shows that the display has the ability to spark and interest to the topic in a young child, which in and of itself is a very difficult thing to do.

In contrast, there weren’t many people who passed through the “Laws and Regulations” display. Most of the people who did venture into the display were high school or middle school students that were reading the board to answer questions for an assignment. One professor kind of periodically came to the display and started talking to his students about different laws and regulations that the display was discussing. Usually, this display didn’t really catch the attention of many people. There was literally one point in which this whole group of about fifty kids just walked through the display without even bating an eye to any of information. It’s difficult to find new ways to display information like this. When speaking of laws and regulations, the only way to effectively display information is to focus the facts and write them down. There were videos in the display, but they were hidden until you walked into the booth. Perhaps the display would catch more attention if the videos were more visible as you were walking through the hall.

I think the exhibits successfully display the ideas of conservation, but the words that are used can only have so much power if people are drawn to read them. Perhaps if there displays were more interactive, people would be more likely to be drawn to these displays and further more read the information that they provide and become more informed about conservation itself.

Ultimately, the Hall of Biodiversity l brought a whole new dimension to the things that we learned in class. It was so cute to see kids run through this rain forest display and feel as if they were transported into a different world. This exhibit definitely educates people on the beauty of biodiversity from the moment they walk in and look up at the walls.

I chose to observe spectators viewing the ‘Lives in the Balance: Endangered Species’ and ‘The Dzanga-Sangha Rainforest’ exhibits for this assignment. The first exhibit, ‘Lives in the Balance: Endangered Species’, consists of a large glass box with several true-to-size replicas of several endangered animals, such as the Giant Panda and Dugong. The rainforest diorama is a recreation of part of the actual rainforest in the Central African Republic, complete with dozens of animals both hidden and visible within the plants and terrain.

During the 15 minutes that I observed the Endangered Species case, 49 visitors had viewed the exhibit, the majority of which were elementary school students. This exhibit was shared the center of the Hall of Biodiversity with the rainforest, making it an easily accessible location that individuals can quickly glance at while they browse the place. Most of those who viewed the case were interested in the larger animals in the display, particularly the Siberian Tiger. This tiger captured the attention of both adults and children with its massive body weight and intimidating stance. Many people crouched down to view its open jaw. Visitors were amazed at how lifelike the replica was, with several children asking “if it’s real”. Tigers are animals that many of us become very familiar with from an early age, which could be one of the reasons why it attracted more attention than the dugong and dodo bird. I’ve witness three of the teachers who passed by with their classes teach their students about endangered species, explaining to them that despite the tiger’s impressive body, it is still threatened due to factors like habitat loss and hunting.

I tallied 56 visitors while observing the rainforest diorama for 15 minutes. Once again, there were visitors of all ages visiting with their classes or with friends and family. Many children stretched over the metal railing to try and locate as many animals as possible. They were able to notice birds and other reptiles that I hadn’t been able to spot, despite having visited this replica a number of times throughout the past few years. As with the Endangered Species case, teachers who came through here with their classes taught their students about the display–they explained the features of the rainforest and how a large variety of animals can reside in them, making them valuable ecosystems. The information plaques were a bit difficult to read in the dark, but 20 of the individuals who passed by stopped to read them.

I believe both of these exhibits are great educational tools. The endangered species exhibit that showcases a few of the many endangered species on Earth is exciting to look at, especially because it contains terrestrial, marine, and arboreal animals from different parts of the world. The rainforest exhibit is a unique display in how it depicts the biodiversity of a region that is threatened by human interference. By replicating the density of the forest and richness of species, people can take simply take a walk through this pathway and momentarily feel as though they are visiting the Dzanga Sangha rainforest.

Our trip to the American Museum of Natural History was a great excursion (despite my initial panic over forgetting all about it.) Sometimes a break of routine and getting away from the classroom is the healthiest thing for us.

(selfie)

While there I observed the Tiger in the Endangered Species display and an interactive video on Amphibians.

The tiger was a big hit among the crowd. 20 people actually stopped and looked, while more would quickly pause to look closer and then continue on their merry way. People seemed absolutely in awe of this tiger. I guess that they are larger than we would expect. There wasn’t a lot of reading going on. People were looking and then leaving. The information on the glass was for the most part ignored.

There was a very sweet interaction between a mother and a daughter where they roared at each other. A tour came through with only one elderly couple on it. As the tour guide said, “These are endangered,” I suspect the elderly couple thought to themselves, “We aren’t going to live that long anyway.” They did look in danger of dying at any second. But to contrast that, a woman showed her child in a stroller the tiger, as if to say, “This is what the future can hold, if we preserve it.”

The other exhibit I did was an interactive video based on amphibians. It had a little statue next to it. I’d say that 11 people were in the vicinity of the video but only 3 people actually looked at it. The most interested were a set of three girls, one of whom spent all her time touching the tongue of the statue, and the oldest of the three spending the longest time there- probably 3 minutes top.

Often enough children would stand right in front of the video, even touch the video, but not look at it. I felt like I was routing on the last place horse in the Kentucky Derby. At one point a man came over and truly seemed to be interested… until I realized he was just taking pictures of the wall behind it. There was so much stimulation and so much going on that the video was ignored.

Which brings me to my next point- I don’t think that the museum can be more engaging, more interactive, more conducive to educating the masses. Why is this? Because the masses aren’t trying to be educated; they’re trying to be entertained. The tiger exhibit drew eyes because tigers are cool, terrifying animals, not because tigers are going extinct. What people what to give their attention to is what will succeed. We live in a modern day where the real currency isn’t dollars, but instead attention. If people want to get educated the resources are out there and easily accessible. A trip to the museum is no longer solely about learning. It’s akin to amusement park attraction. And people aren’t going to pay good money to go and be bored.

Ps. I found this cool painting of a giraffe.

Let’s all take a moment to appreciate the fact that part of what is contributing to our grade is our ability to people watch. The next step is getting paid for this sort of thing. Can anyone help me with that?

I spent my first fifteen minutes at the video display playing the same ten-minute video, “Life in the Balance,” on a loop. The video shows all of the majesties of nature for the first third, what human beings are doing to destroy that in the second third, and possible ways we can fix the problems presented in the third…uh, third. I started my watching officially at 11:30, after I’d already been standing there for around ten minutes watching the video through and figuring this display would be easier than any other in the hall because no one used it. A few minutes later a family of four showed up to stare at the screen for about forty seconds with incredibly bad timing because the children very much did not like bees and loudly made it known. (Then a family of three passed by and one of the children knocked into me with his shoulder, making me conclude children just don’t know how to walk.) Out of the 17 people that “interacted” (read: had even a solitary glance at it) with the display, that family of four actually stayed longer than most, who walked by with a solitary glance at the screen or paused in front of it for a few moments before continuing. Other long contenders were a young adult that stayed for three minutes to watch the solutions portion of the video then leaving at the end (the danger of video loops), and a single mother with her child who stayed for about four minutes, and only for one of those minutes did the child actually sit down (they left during the bit where the human impact on the world started). The female half of an elderly couple mad an apt comment during her momentary stay: “I don’t like to look.” Found poetry, maybe.

The second display I stayed at was the Resource Center, a through-way in the room that is a load of information presented all at once with numerous video loops and large infographic displays on pretty much everything to do with biodiversity and environmental degradation. Though many more people gave the section a glance, a selective few gave it any more than that: of the 37 people I counted that came through the display (plus 2 entire school classes, probably around 50 or 60 students, who didn’t pause except for the teacher to yell at them to keep hands held with their walking buddy), only a dozen stayed for any amount of time to read anything, and half of those were students forced to be there for an assignment (including Katie and company!). Of people not forced to be there, about four stayed for longer than a minute, though one notable person went through and read every display during the fifteen minutes I was there. Another read about half of them and just stood in front of the others texting. He gets a pale yellow star for trying. Also notable was an old man that walked through with his head down, mumbling to himself, then pausing at the population increase display and shouting things like “Yeah, that’s something.” He was my favorite. I named him Jim.

Though both displays did present a wealth of information (the resource center moreso, obviously), I think a lot of the problems with both of them came down to interactivity and marketing. The textual displays in the resource center got the most attention, second to the bigger-screened video displays lining the wall, whereas the smaller video displays were only used by students—I might guess that this is because everyone can read at whatever pace they want, but videos force the information unto us usually in time slower than we find necessary. The Life in the Balance display got nearly no attention at all­—I think the problem here is that no one wants to be forced through a video. I think that in the resource center this could be fixed by offering the smaller displays as interactive—touch screens, the ability to either watch the video or read a transcript for those that want the information they want to get from it quickly. For Life in the Balance, I’m not wholly sure there’s any fix to make people want to sit for ten minutes in a loud room to watch anything, but an offer of what the hell it is they’re watching might be nice—just a small plaque giving an overview might do the trick. The problem presented to museums, I think, is not in educating the public—there’s a huge amount of educative opportunity available at the museum—but educated people in a way that is engaging and entertaining, to educate those who aren’t expressly there to be educated but rather for an afternoon out. What the information needs is a marketing team. Which is the most depressing thing in the world, but, yaknow, blahblah Roland Barthes semiotics of consumerism blahblah millenials need to feel engaged and engaged in a way that seems both sincere and at their pace because we’ve been force-fed for so long blahblah theoritician statement blahblah Lonesome George was cool.

Visiting the American Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Biodiversity was a very exciting and insightful experience. Generally, when I visit the museum, I am simply a spectator, but during this visit I had the unique opportunity to be both a spectator and an exhibit surveyor. This activity showed me how people react to different exhibits and what techniques were especially effective or ineffective for educating the public about biodiversity, while surveying the exhibits named The Spectrum of Life and The Resource Center

The Spectrum of Life was a truly massive and impressive exhibit. It travels through the evolutionary history of the various kingdoms that inhabit planet Earth. From fungi, to plants, to mammals, there are models of all these species and how they function and their role in the environment. Along with models, there are videos continuously playing of real life examples of species, like worms or cartilaginous fish. Moreover, there is an interactive computer screen that takes visitors through the various names, pictures, and functions of these species. While going through the exhibit myself, I was truly amazed by how many models of mammals and insects were tacked up on the walls. However, I did not realize the computer screens were interactive until I saw someone else using them. While observing others in the exhibit, I witnessed a total of around 60 people travel to The Spectrum of Life. The majority of these people were children around the age of six or seven, traveling in a class group, with their teachers as mentors. There were three separate classes, but generally each class exhibited the same behaviors towards the exhibit. Since they were younger kids, they enjoyed watching the continuous videos and looking at all the models on the wall. Their general reactions were of amazement at all the different species that they had most likely never seen before. Some kids saw the giant scorpions and spiders and uttered phrases of disgust like “Ew!” or “Gross!” Teachers were explaining to the children whatever they asked, in a simplified manner. For example, one child asked about what a fungus was and the teacher went on to explain it is a sort of plant. The children didn’t really go through the interactive video, because it was created more for people of greater age. The classes generally stayed in the exhibit for about five minutes, before moving onto the ocean life exhibits. As for improving this exhibit, it could be slightly more user friendly. First off, the computer screens aren’t really interesting or intuitive. It would be more interesting if separate buttons were added next to each species group to provide some quick facts and information. The models were aesthetically pleasing, but small facts about them would also be beneficial. The entire exhibit is really geared towards older people who have either studied biology or those who are interested in learning more. Overall, it is a great exhibit and is really informative, but could definitely be improved in the ways mentioned above.

The Resource Center was also a very intriguing exhibit, but it wasn’t as populated as The Spectrum of Life. This entire section was about how nature provides valuable resources for humans and we should protect. There were sections dedicated to specific laws dealing with conservation and how certain human interactions can cause harm to the environment. Such interactions included nonnative/invasive species introduction, depletion of resources, and caused species to become endangered. However, there were also video segments about species, like various birds, are adapting to human caused disasters, such as the disastrous Chernobyl accident. The majority of the exhibit was full of posters and boards with maps, informative paragraphs, and some pictures on them. There were interactive videos, which were very interesting, considering the fact that they were real life examples. The entire exhibit was very well lit, in comparison to a lot of the other places in the hall, which provided for a better reading space. As for the number of people in the exhibit, it was as popular as the previous exhibit, only achieving a maximum of 20 people during the observation time span. The visitors were teenagers, around high school age, and were taking notes while going through the exhibit. They were probably researching resource conservation and needed more information about the topic and came to learn more about the topic. The people were going through all parts of the exhibit and watching all videos and reading most, if not all, of the information. They were there for the entire time that I was observing. All the information in this exhibit is very informative, but once again, it is aimed for a higher audience. It could be improved by making it more interactive and lively by placing sounds of various species or models of those species/resources they are talking about. Though the exhibit is generally geared towards older people, it still conveys a strong message about biodiversity and resource conservation.

The Hall of Biodiversity is a fine attraction and is very thoughtfully constructed, though it could be made even better. Some parts of the hall had very dim lighting, which made it very difficult to see the exhibit or see the descriptions of the exhibit. I understand it is done to simulate the environment being discussed, but a little more lighting would greatly improve the hall. Moreover, the hall contains a massive amount of information in word form, but not as many interactive parts. The hall could be greatly improved if sounds of creatures or more videos were included. For example, many people were attracted to The Spectrum of Life exhibit because it had an interesting video. That’s why, if small clips were placed near each exhibit, it would make the exhibit more popular. Also, sounds of birds or tigers would be very engaging and would appeal more to the younger audience. I truly enjoyed the Hall of Biodiversity, but with the preceding suggested improvements, it could be just as enjoyable to all age groups.