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The Hall of Biodiversity: In Which I Observed Others and Looked Suspicious While Doing It

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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.

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The American Museum of Attention Deficit Disorder

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Please note that I love the museum of natural history and the title is not criticizing the museum, it is criticizing some people who visit it. Simply going to a museum does not make one more socially conscious or cultured. I was disappointed in the lack of reading and discussing at the exhibits I observed.

At the “Sustaining the Forest” exhibit, I tallied about 24 people who interacted in some way with the exhibit or took a moment to even glance at it. 8 of them just looked at it, another 10 to 11 were doing a project on it and were either silently reading the pictures or talking about something completely different. Occasionally they asked “what’s the answer to number…?” meaning they didn’t really try taking in anything here. However, one student started talking to another student about how her aunt worked in forest recovery or something, I couldn’t hear well. The remaining 5 people were 2 who read most of what was in the exhibit to themselves and the other 3 were a foreign family that started talking to each other and reading. They stayed for a while too. I really wish I could have understood them because if so, that would just strengthen my hypothesis that American children just can’t pay attention to anything for more than a second (Assuming the family didn’t identify as American, which they might have. I don’t want to jump to conclusions about anybody). In the case of this exhibit, the museum might be partially to blame. The lighting wasn’t great and there’s too much mixed media in the room, too many different kinds of exhibits. I read the exhibit afterwards and I don’t think they could have put it together any better, but at the very least the lighting has to change.

I went over to the Coral Reefs exhibit afterwards in the ocean biodiversity room. I found similar results as before. 37 people interacted with it. 4 of them glanced at it and ignored it. 11 interacted in some small way (briefly watching the film above, slowing their walk to look at the picture, or read for a second). Then, again, I found a few more foreign families talking about the exhibit. One child pointed to everything and started talking about it to the parents, who tried hurrying him along, but he wasn’t having it. He was fascinated. Then I saw an American family watching the film for a while, starting and ending their discussion with “pretty!” Lastly there were two women who were about to start talking about it, but I think they noticed me eavesdropping and they got freaked out and walked away. My bad. This room is great, and the exhibit is great, but unfortunately the whale takes precedence in this room. Everybody goes in here for the whale, and everything else kind of just feels small after seeing it.

I want to give some advice. If you’re going to the AMNH to be more cultured and aware, limit yourself to two rooms for your whole visit. You’ll learn a lot more that way, and the feeling of letting the entirety of a world wash over you must feel amazing. Also, if you’re bringing children, put your hand over their heads to keep them from running around. I know they want to see the whale, but lead them up to it, and talk to them about something. Don’t make the trip a chore or a homeschooling adventure, make it fun!

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An Afternoon at AMNH

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The Museum of Natural History is incredible, and I had a really good time exploring the Hall of Biodiversity and seeing how the public interacted with the exhibits. I chose the sea otter exhibit and the endangered species exhibit, the latter of which contains gibbons, pandas, tigers, tortoises, and many other endangered animals.

The Hall of Biodiversity.
The Hall of Biodiversity.

The sea otter exhibit is meant to provide information on the otter’s ecosystem and biology. It is in the Hall of Ocean Life, so the otter is put in context of the larger ocean and the many marine ecosystems. There is also behavioral information in this exhibit, like how the sea otter uses rocks as a tool to open clams. It helps the public to understand the specific needs and niches of the sea otter, while putting it in perspective of the greater ocean ecosystem.

The endangered species exhibit is intended to educate people on the plight of particularly threatened species, who face possible extinction by loss of habitat, human conflict, pollution, and a great many other factors. By educating the public on endangerment, the exhibit is trying to foster a more aware and more compassionate populace, thus making conservation a popular issue and avoiding extinction where possible.

People were generally more interested in the endangered species exhibit rather than the sea otter one. I believe this is mainly because the endangered species exhibit contains many more animals, and is probably seen as more interesting than the sea otter in absolute terms. Of course, I’m sure there are sea otter fanatics who’d rather spend prolonged periods with the otter,

The adorable sea otter.
The adorable sea otter.

but I didn’t happen to observe these people. There were more people observing the endangered spe

cies exhibit rather than the sea otter – 57 visitors in fifteen minutes as opposed to 45 visitors. Commentary on both exhibits was about the same though – “Oh, he’s so cute! I want to pet him!” or just simply, “Sea otter!” and, “Panda!” While there were some visitors (mainly adults, speaking to children) who were interested in the actual information on the animals, most people maintained an only superficial and brief interest. In both exhibits, people looked at the animal(s) involved and, after a moment, just walked away. Very few stayed to read the information on the animals. People were most interested by far, though, in the roaring tiger. People copied his face, roared, and took photos. Perhaps if the good people at the museum could, when they acquire animals in the future, position them in engaging poses/positions, it would hold people’s attention for longer. For example, like having a gorilla beat its chest, or having a crow caw – these would engage the audience. This suggestion might be implausible, however. I also feel like the exhibits are great as they are, and people just have short attention spans and don’t care to read about one animal, especially when there are so many others to briefly observe. This, I believe, is largely due to the time in which we live, where people can’t go five minutes without checking their phone, and can barely pay attention to one thing continuously.

I think perhaps if the exhibits were more interactive, and thus engaging, people would be more inclined to seriously contemplate conservation. As are, the exhibits seem to lack dimension. Of course, for an animal lover they’re great – but animals don’t intrigue everyone immediately. Some people need to be shown how cool and interesting animals are – and this is where interactive exhibits would greatly benefit conservation.

Overall, I think the Hall of Biodiversity is great. Even if not everyone wanted to read all the text, people seemed to love being able to see such a variety of animals the likes of which they’d never seen before. It was lovely to see how enthusiastic the children were when viewing the exhibits. To think that if the Hall of Biodiversity didn’t exist that it would deprive thousands of people of this experience – well, that’s unthinkable.

 

P.S. We also saw Lonesome George and the Taung Child. They were awesome.

Twins, Lonesome George and Allegra.
Twins, Lonesome George and Allegra.

 

AMNH

AMNH Assignment for 12/5. Blog post due 12/12

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The hall of biodiversity is full of great displays that teach patrons what biodiversity is, what the threats to it are, and potential solutions they can partake in to help conserve biodiversity. As part of your field trip to AMNH and the lesson on informal science communication (crucial to conservation!), you will be examining how the public interacts with the Hall of Biodiversity and then critically analyze what you found in a blog post.

Instructions:
1. Before you come to AMNH, briefly (i.e. don’t have to read everything!) look over the Educator’s guide to familiar yourself with the displays and goals of the Hall.
2. Once there, walk around the Hall of Biodiversity to check it all out, including the videos and rainforest
3. Pick two different types of displays to observe for 15 minutes each
4. During the 15 minutes:
-Tally the number of people that interact/observe the display
-Record how long each stays at the display and how they interact with it (i.e., reading only, pressing button, etc.)
-Record any comments they make to their fellow visitors about the display

In the blog post, answer:
1. What displays did you chose?
2. What information is the display trying to convey?
3. Compare how the patrons interacted with the two displays, could the information be displayed in a way that would make it more accessible or interesting to patrons? How?
4. Could the exhibit be better designed to convey the biodiversity/conservation message?
5. Do you think the Hall of Biodiversity, overall, is effective at educating the public?

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