Coming to life: museum artists create dioramas so lifelike that they might he mistaken for the real thing.

After closing hours, the T. rex skeleton at a natural-history museum roars to life. Models of ancient people step out of their dioramas and roam the exhibit halls ... At least that's what happened in the 2006 film Night at the Museum.

Although the American Museum of Natural History in New York--where parts of the movie were shot--has very realistic-looking diorama figures, there's no fear that they will spring out of their setting. Stephen Quinn knows that for sure. He's the senior project manager in charge of dioramas at the museum, and he helped create the realistic-looking scenes for the museum's Hall of Human Origins.

Visitors to the new hall, which reopened this February, will see a series of scenes depicting various periods in the history of human evolution. "The scenes are like time machines that transport visitors into the past," says Quinn. For example: In one scene, three figures are set against a realistic background. One figure is a young girl emerging from a hut made of bones. She shows how Cro magnons (early modern humans) lived 15,000 years ago during the last glacial period, when large sheets of ice covered vast parts of Earth's surface.

DETAILED DESIGN

To create the scene, Quinn supervised a team of artists as they painted the background scenery, sculpted the human figures, and created the setting where they stand.

To make sure that these artistic elements are accurate representations of scientific findings, the artists worked closely with museum scientists. "The scientists had the final say in every design detail, from the environment in which the figure is shown, to the color of its eyes and the clothes it's wearing," says Quinn.

For example: The scientists asked the artists to design and re-create a scene in an area in central Asia, which is now Ukraine. Research suggests that the early humans who lived in this region may have had light skin, blond hair, and blue eyes--just like the people today living in similar regions. The early humans were also likely to have led an active lifestyle, tracking and hunting animals such as mammoths. That leads scientists to believe the people may have been lean and muscular.

BODY BUILDER

To construct the girl's figure and have it correctly represent the ancient people, the artists depended on the scientists' research. They also found someone alive today with similar physical features to serve as a model.

The artists made molds of the model's hands and face. Using the molds, they made a plaster head and hands for the figure. Then, sculptors used the model's measurements to create a metal "skeleton."

Unlike your skeleton, which has 206 bones, the figure's skeleton only follows the shape of the major bones, like the humerus (upper arm bone) and the femur (thigh bone). Sculptors then padded the metal skeleton with dense white foam, and carved it into the model's body dimensions.

Next, the assembled figure was carefully painted. Its head was then given blue glass eyes. And strand-by-strand, blond hair was applied to the figure. Finally, the artists dressed the figure of the girl in animal hides.

Quinn says the girl figure is so realistic looking that you might think that she's a living, breathing person. But as real as she may seem, there's no chance of her coming to life like a character in Night at the Museum.

THE MAKING OF A DIORAMA

It can take artists months to create a diorama. The three-dimensional scene includes a curved backdrop on which a landscape is painted. Next, artists build the foreground and add figures to the scene.

1 After painting a realistic landscape onto the background, artists construct the floor.

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2 An artist dips plant fiber into plaster to create the foreground terrain.

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3 Figures are placed in the foreground and work begins on constructing a hut.

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4 Once the finishing touches have been added, the diorama is ready for visitors to see,

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what's this?

Can you guess what kind of bones are modeled in the photo at right? (Hint: Your choices are a giraffe, a dinosaur, or a mammoth.) Find the answer at http://ology. amnh.org/mystery_photo/hho. The Museum's world-renown habitat dioramas, including the Mountain Gorilla, African Buffalo, and African Elephant groupings, are featured in the Akeley Hall of African Mammals. Museum scientists have been researching the natural world for more than 135 years, and currently travel the world on 100 field expeditions each year, studying everything from mastodons to meteorites.

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To learn more, visit: www.scholastic.com/ scienceexplorations

PRE-READING PROMPTS

Jump-start your lesson with these pre-reading questions:

* The American Museum of Natural History in New York (AMNH) began hiring staff artists in 1885. "AMNH has a great tradition of art in the service of science," says Stephen Quinn, an artist at the museum. What might his statement mean?

* Artists use many layers and shades of paint to achieve the right skin coloring for a diorama figure. That's because "there are many tones in the human skin, " says Quinn. What other techniques do museum artists use to make sure that the diorama figures are accurate representations of historical figures?

CRITICAL THINKING:

* What is the purpose of a museum diorama? What might visitors learn by studying one?

CROSS-CURRICULAR CONNECTIONS:

ART: Have each student pick a different ecosystem and do research on the environment. Then have him or her create a "shoebox diorama" of the selected environment.

RESOURCES

* Take an online tour of the dioramas at the AMNH. Visit: www.amnh.org/exhibitions/dioramas/

* "Windows on Nature," by Stephen Christopher Quinn, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in association with The American Museum of Natural History, 2006.