#632: Cambridge Zoology Museum

As part of the resources which are being developed in due course to go along with the GCSE Natural History specification, we will be suggesting lists of places to visit as part of the wider work of delivering the new course. It will be important to connect students with these places, whether through school, or by encouraging parents to consider taking their children there for enrichment purposes.

As I teach in Cambridgeshire, this would be one place to consider should my current school decide to offer the new GCSE Natural History specification.

It's right here, in Cambridge, the only real giant ground sloth skeleton on display in the UK. These South American herbivores were among the largest mammals to walk the Earth. We're open this weekend, incl. 12 - 4.30pm Bank Holiday Monday, if you fancy a look 😎@CamUnivMuseums pic.twitter.com/WSMU0OlyIY

— Museum of Zoology, Cambridge (@ZoologyMuseum) August 24, 2022

The website is here. 

#368: Overhaul for Natural History Museum

A recent report in The Guardian gave some information on the latest developments at the Natural History Museum, which has spent a lot of time and money overhauling its outside spaces recently.

Now it's moving to the inside and exploring how its work is presented.

It has announced plans to overhaul four galleries - including the iconic dinosaur exhibit - as they add a permanent display on “climate messaging”.

The Museum will raise £150 million to revamp their programming and join “a global mission to create 100 million advocates for the planet”.

The new exhibition, Fixing Our Broken Planet, will have the express aim of “nudging” visitors to change their behaviour.

The piece quotes the Director Doug Gurr:

Until recently, Gurr told the Guardian, the museum had seen itself as a “passive observer … our job was to collect, to conserve, to research, to display”.

“[Then] we stepped back a bit and said: ‘Well, hang on, if your subject matter is planet Earth and it’s under that much threat, you’ve got to do something about it. If you want the sporting analogy: how do you get off the sidelines and get on the pitch?”

In 2020 the museum declared a planetary emergency, and Gurr said the redevelopment was part of its continuing response. “The best contribution we can make is to create what we call ‘advocates for the planet’. And what that really means is: how do you inspire people at scale to care about nature and to care enough to want to do something about it?

“Of course, we still want people to have a brilliant, fun family day out. But if you can come out of that being a little bit more interested in nature and a little bit more aware of some of the challenges, you’re a bit more likely to want to do something about it.”

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

#316: Climate Change and Natural History

Many museum collections are being revisited to see what they can tell us about the past, and also what they previously neglected to tell us. Collections and their use will be part of the new draft specification, and visits to suitable places are likely to be an important part of the preparation that teachers do for their teaching.

This article looks at the work being done at the Natural History Museum to explore evidence of past climate change.

They have a huge collection, and much work needs to be done to revisit it and reinterpret some of the collections.

#284: OVERT - the open vertebrate project

Developed by Florida Museum.

Five years after its start, the openVertebrate project has made thousands of 3D natural history specimens available for free online. https://t.co/88iy98Yj7W @NewsfromScience

— Science Magazine (@ScienceMagazine) April 6, 2024

#140: Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity

Part of the Natural History Museum is the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity.

It carries out important work.

From the description:

One of the centre's key roles is to support the individuals, schemes and societies that record, monitor and protect the UK's biodiversity.
What you can do in the centre:

• get help identifying specimens you've found with the centre's Identification and Advisory Service
• make use of our visitor space which includes microscopes and photo-stacking equipment for photographing specimens
• access our UK biodiversity reference collections of specimens and the London Natural History Society's library
• if you're a member of a natural history organisation, you can book our workshop space and meeting rooms

Check out the ID Facebook page.