Spring 2006
Nature Research Center receives NASA earmark
The Museum received a big boost to its plans for a Space & Earth
Observation wing in the Nature Research Center (NRC) when a federal
earmark worth $500,000 from the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) was approved in December 2005.
In alignment with NASA’s mission “to inspire the next generation of explorers,” the purpose of the Museum’s planned 95,000-square-foot expansion is to engage the public in understanding the scientific research that affects their daily lives. The NRC, which is slated for completion in December 2008, will educate visitors using a combination of innovative exhibits, informative programs, hands-on labs, and live encounters with scientists doing environmental research.
One of the daily challenges NASA faces is making the wealth of information it gathers easily available to the public — data such as the latest images from the Hubble Space Telescope and Mars rovers, real-time radio telescopes, optical telescopes and Earth-observation satellites from research sites around the world. The NRC will provide a unique opportunity to incorporate, interpret and present this information. The Museum expects more than 200,000 people to visit the new center each year.
“This generous assistance from NASA will go a long way to help defray crucial planning costs necessary for the development of programs, exhibits and learning spaces in the Nature Research Center,” says Museum Director Betsy Bennett. “In helping us to secure these funds, Representative David Price has once again proven himself a champion for the Museum and for improved science education in North Carolina.”
Museum and National Parks collaboration
The Museum is cooperating with the National Park Service to house
and archive NPS’s collection of biological research
specimens from parks in the Appalachian Highlands Inventory
and Monitoring Network. Network parklands include the Blue
Ridge Parkway, Big South Fork National River and Recreation
Area, Obed Wild and Scenic River, Great Smoky Mountains National
Park and the southernmost one-third of the Appalachian Trail
(specimens from the Great Smoky Mountains and the Appalachian
Trail will be housed elsewhere). The partnership will allow
long-term stewardship of NPS’s significant natural resource
collections and provide convenient access to specimens for
continuing research efforts in these parks.
As part of a federal mandate, the NPS collects baseline information about all vertebrates and vascular plants and monitors long-term trends in the condition of natural resources in all its parks. The NPS’s primary mission is to conserve, unimpaired, the natural and cultural resources and values of its lands for the enjoyment of future generations. Documentation specimens — referred to as “voucher specimens” — produced in ongoing inventories provide a permanent record of biological diversity on federal park lands.
“This groundbreaking agreement is already being used as a template for other museums to work with the NPS to provide quality housing, proper care and appropriate access for specimens that document the natural resources on NPS properties,” says Alvin Braswell, Museum curator of herpetology.
Further, the public will benefit from biological research results available in technical and non-technical media and receive assurance that park resources will be preserved for future generations.
Museum showcases contest photos
Thirty-one award-winning pictures from the
2005 Wildlife in North Carolina
Photo Competition are on display
through March 30 at the Museum’s Naturalist Gallery.
More than 640 photographers entered 3,324 photographs in 10 categories this summer, including more than 60 young photographers in the two youth categories. Open to amateur and professional photographers, the competition is intended to encourage high-quality nature photography and to identify talented wildlife photographers working in North Carolina. Only photographs taken in North Carolina during the past five years were eligible.
Sponsored by the Museum and Wildlife in North Carolina magazine, the competition is a stateside version of the BBC International Photographer of the Year Competition, produced by BBC Wildlife magazine and the Natural History Museum of London.
John Stroud of Raleigh won the grand prize. His photograph of a hummingbird attacking a bee is one in a series he took through an open window in his office. Stroud also won first place in the Invertebrates category with an image of a wasp in flight.
Other categories included Wildflowers & Fruits, Outdoor Recreation, Reptiles & Amphibians, Mammals, Birds, and the landscape category Peaks, Valleys and Plains. The Habitats of Concern category highlighted natural communities that are part of the recently finalized N.C. Wildlife Action Plan for conservation of non-game animals.
Judges for the competition were selected for their experience in producing or choosing superior photography. They included Mike Dunn, the Museum’s coordinator of teacher education, who frequently provides photographs for the Naturalist.
The exhibit will travel across the state in 2006, opening in April at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Brevard, then moving to the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education in Corolla. Winning photographs can be viewed at www.ncwildlife.org.
Museum adds spectacular gems and minerals
The Museum has acquired an extraordinary collection of gems and
minerals outshone only by collections owned by the Smithsonian
Institution and Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Thanks
to a generous gift from SAS Institute of Cary, these treasures
have entered the Museum’s collection and will be displayed
in a permanent exhibit later this year.
The collection was displayed in its entirety in 2004-2005 as the special exhibit “Treasures Unearthed: North Carolina’s Spectacular Gems and Minerals.” The specimens were on loan from an anonymous benefactor, who afterward decided to sell his entire historical collection only to the Museum. With an eye toward dramatic beauty, perfection and historical uniqueness, he spent 40 years amassing these homegrown North Carolina treasures.
Superlative items include a gold nugget from the Reed Gold Mine and a hiddenite crystal with the signed calling card of the collector for whom it was named, William Earl Hidden. The collection also includes pedigreed specimens from the famed collections of W.W. Jeffries, Burnham Colburn and J.H. Pratt.
Other rare specimens include a stunning 103-carat star garnet, which is otherwise unknown outside of Idaho; representative emeralds from all of North Carolina’s emerald mines, including the Plantation Mine, which closed in 1913; bikitaite, a rare lithium mineral known in only two places worldwide; and kobellite, known in only two places in North America.
Asheville
museum recycles gold mine
The Colburn Earth Science Museum in Asheville literally found a
gold mine in an exhibit no longer used at the Museum of Natural
Sciences. It recycled a portion of a gold mine tunnel that was
created for the Museum’s 2004-2005 special exhibit, “Treasures
Unearthed.” Using the material, the Colburn museum created
an 8-by-10-foot replica of a gem mine for its new exhibit, “The
History of Mining in Western North Carolina.” Visitors to
the exhibit use a fabricated dynamite plunger to trigger a simulated
explosion inside the mine — achieved through an audio sequence
of an explosion and falling rocks, a smoke machine and lights.
The Colburn Earth Science Museum is located at 2 South Pack Square.
For more information, visit www.colburnmuseum.org.
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, in downtown Raleigh, documents and interprets the natural history of the state of North Carolina through exhibits, research, collections, publications, and educational programming. Hours: Mon.-Sat., 9 am to 5 pm, and Sun., noon to 5 pm. Admission is free. Visit the Museum on the Web at naturalsciences.org. The Museum is an agency of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, William G. Ross Jr., Secretary.
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