The Waterloo Earth Sciences Museum.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SUMMARY The University of Waterloo's Earth Sciences Museum was started as a Canadian centennial The Canadian Centennial was a year long celebration held in 1967 when Canada celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation. Celebrations occurred throughout the year but culminated on Dominion Day, July 1. project and has been part of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences outreach program for over 40 years. Museum initiatives include lectures; hands-on geological activities such as gold panning; construction of a rock garden; production of geology-themed books for children and adults; podcasts; and participation in gem shows, groundwater festivals and other public events. The museum benefits from public and private funding and the donation of specimens. Volunteers and co-op students allow it to function with a minimum of staff. It provides examples of the types of programs to increase public geological knowledge and understanding that can be offered by even a modest museum. SOMMAIRE Le Musee des Sciences de la Terre La Terre (The Earth) is a novel by Émile Zola, published in 1887. It is the fifteenth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series. The action takes place in a rural community in La Beauce, an area of northern France. a l'Universite de Waterloo etait un porjet du centennaire duCanada, et depuis a fait parti d'un programme de communication du Departement des Sciences de la Terre. Les initiatives incluent des conferences; des activities geologiques, comme le lavage lavage /la·vage/ (lah-vahzh´) 1. the irrigation or washing out of an organ, as of the stomach or bowel. 2. to wash out, or irrigate. lav·age n. de gravier pour sepater de l'or; le developpement d'un jardin de rocaille rocaille (French; rock work) In Western architecture and decorative arts, an 18th-century style featuring elaborately stylized shell-like, rocklike, flower, fern, and scroll motifs. ; la production de livres a themes geologiques pour enfants et adultes; des programmes pour iPod; et la participation a des exhibitions de pierres precieuses, des festivals de l'eau souterraine et auters activites publiques. Le musee jouit de financement publique et prive, et de dons specimens. Des benevoles et des etudiants permettent le fonetionnement avec le minimum d'employes. Ceci offert des exemples de programmes pour ameliorer les connaissances st la comprehension de la geologie pour le grand publique qu'un musee de taille taille: see tallage. modeste peut amener. INTRODUCTION Since it was started as a centennial project in 1967, the University of Waterloo's (UW) Earth Sciences Museum has become the centrepiece of the UW Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences' outreach program. It attracted an estimated 85 632 visitors in 2008, including 7137 visitors in 134 tour groups, and logged 17 068 hits on its website in 2007. Attendance has shown steady growth, with numbers up substantially from 9252 visitors and 3520 website hits in 2002. The museum is located at the UW Centre for Environmental and Information Technology (EIT EIT erythrocyte iron turnover. ) building, in the March Networks Exhibit Atrium and an adjoining gallery space. Tour groups are generally children from schools or clubs. They can participate in talks on dinosaurs or volcanoes, and hands-on activities, such as a fossil-fish excavation or scavenger hunt scavenger hunt n. A game in which individuals or teams try to locate and bring back miscellaneous items on a list. . Other museum initiatives include Rock Around Town podcast tours of area cities; Dining with the Dinosaurs, which gives organizations and groups the opportunity to host functions amongst museum displays; an extensive outdoor rock garden featuring large specimens from Canada and the United States The United States and Canada share a unique legal relationship. U.S. law looks northward with a mixture of optimism and cooperation, viewing Canada as an integral part of U.S. economic and environmental policy. ; and books about Manitoulin Island Manitoulin Island is a Canadian island in Lake Huron, the world's largest freshwater lake island. Geography and geology With an area of 2,766 km² (1,068 square miles), it is the 174th largest island in the world, and Canada's 31st largest island. geology and groundwater. The museum benefits from first-rate facilities as a result of the EIT building's design, but in other ways it can also serve as a model for geological museums housed in more modest venues at other universities and institutions. Staff numbers are minimal, and most activities and administrative work are conducted by the curator, with assistance from volunteers and students on co-op work placements. The operating budget Noun 1. operating budget - a budget for current expenses as distinct from financial transactions or permanent improvements budget items, operating cost, operating expense, overhead - the expense of maintaining property (e.g. is small (approximately $125 000), and most acquisitions are through donations of funds or artifacts artifacts see specimen artifacts. . HISTORY Conceived as a Canada centennial project, the UW Earth Sciences Museum was founded in 1967 as The Biology--Earth Sciences Museum, and opened to the public in 1968 (Fig. 1). Funding was provided by the University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (also referred to as UW, UWaterloo, or Waterloo) is a medium-sized research-intensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957. and the Ontario Ministry of Culture. It was initially housed in two rooms with a total floor area of 280 [m.sup.2], in the university's Biology One building. A geological garden was opened in May 1987. It consisted of 23 donated specimens representing various Ontario geological formations. It was renamed The Peter Russell Rock Garden, in honour of the museum's curator, in 1999, and now contains over 50 specimens from all over Canada and parts of the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] In 1994, the Biology department withdrew its involvement and the museum became known as the Earth Sciences Museum. The museum remained in the original space until August 2003 when it was moved to the newly built EIT building. Curator Peter Russell and Cheryl Atkinson of Teeple Architects were involved in the design of the Exhibit Atrium of the EIT building, so unique facilities, optimized to accommodate museum exhibits, were incorporated into the new structure. The building's atrium is open seven days a week and houses many exhibits, including a replica Tyrannosaurus Tyrannosaurus (tīrăn'ōsôr`əs, tĭr–) [Gr.,=tyrant lizard], member of a family, Tyrannosauridae, of bipedal carnivorous saurischian dinosaurs characterized by having strong hind limbs, a muscular tail, and short rex skull, a wall-mounted reproduction Parasaurolophus skeleton, various mineral exhibits, and an 8.5 x 1.52 x 0.53 m, 1.2-billion-year-old granite gneiss gneiss (nīs), coarse-grained, imperfectly foliated, or layered, metamorphic rock. Gneiss is characterized by alternating light and dark bands differing in mineral composition and having coarser grains than those of schist. monolith from the All-stone Quarry in Northern Ontario Northern Ontario is the part of the province of Ontario which lies north of Lake Huron (including Georgian Bay), the French River and Lake Nipissing. Northern Ontario has a land area of 802,000 km² (310,000 mi²) and constitutes 87% of the land area of Ontario, although it . There is also a gneiss fountain, which is a schematic representation of water flow through the Great Lakes Great Lakes, group of five freshwater lakes, central North America, creating a natural border between the United States and Canada and forming the largest body of freshwater in the world, with a combined surface area of c.95,000 sq mi (246,050 sq km). (Fig. 2). A gallery located adjacent to the atrium (Fig. 3) is the venue for talks to visiting groups and houses more exhibits, such as a replica Albertosaurus skeleton, an original cave bear (Zool.) a very large fossil bear (Ursus spelæus) similar to the grizzly bear, but large; common in European caves. See also: Cave skeleton, and a diorama recreating the environment represented in the Cambrian Burgess Shale Burgess Shale Fossil formation containing remarkably detailed traces of soft-bodied marine organisms of the middle of the Cambrian Epoch (520–512 million years ago). in British Columbia British Columbia, province (2001 pop. 3,907,738), 366,255 sq mi (948,600 sq km), including 6,976 sq mi (18,068 sq km) of water surface, W Canada. Geography . This space is open during regular university business hours BUSINESS HOURS. The time of the day during which business is transacted. In respect to the time of presentment and demand of bills and notes, business hours generally range through the whole day down to the hours of rest in the evening, except when the paper is payable it a bank or by a . [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] OUTREACH PROGRAMS Lectures Talks to school classes and other groups are the central outreach activity of the museum (Fig. 4). Typically, one to three classes, Grades K to 12, participate in one and a half to two-hour sessions. They are conducted by the curator and the most popular topics are dinosaurs, rocks, and minerals. Interactive presentations to school groups are often followed by hands-on activities, such as excavating fossil fish and a scavenger hunt. Lectures are also given at external venues as part of life-long learning and public interest programs. These are aimed more at adults than the in-house lectures are, and deal in a more in-depth way with topics such as, 'A Touch of Geology' (a six-week Lifelong Learning Lifelong learning is the concept that "It's never too soon or too late for learning", a philosophy that has taken root in a whole host of different organisations. Lifelong learning is attitudinal; that one can and should be open to new ideas, decisions, skills or behaviors. course), 'Shirley's Box, The Highgate Mastodon mastodon (măs`tədŏn'), name for a number of prehistoric mammals of the extinct genus Mammut, from which modern elephants are believed to have developed. The earliest known forms lived in the Oligocene epoch in Africa. Story', and 'Manitoulin Island--Rocks, Fossils, and Landscape of Manitoulin Island'. Hands-on Activities A popular hands-on activity is the fossil-fish dig. This involves using dental picks to carefully excavate fossil fish, from rocks of the Eocene Green River Formation The Green River Formation is an Eocene geologic formation that records the sedimentation in a series of intermontane lakes. The sedimentary layers were formed in a large area of interconnecting lakes, named for the present-day Green River, a tributary of the Colorado River. in Wyoming. The fossil-bearing limestone is purchased in bulk from Ulrich's Fossil Gallery in Kemmerer, Wyoming Kemmerer is a city in Lincoln County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 2,651 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Lincoln CountyGR6. It dubs itself the "The Fossil Fish Capital of the World" and the "Gateway to the West. [www.ulrichsfossilgallery.com], at $1 per piece plus shipping. This activity is portable, so it can be taken to gem and mineral shows and other off-campus events. [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] In the scavenger hunt students are given a list of items to find in the atrium, encouraging them to take a look at the exhibits. Typical questions are: The ice-age elephant is not a mammoth it is a M_S_D_N (mastodon); purple variety of quartz _M_ _HY_T (amethyst amethyst (ăm`əthĭst) [Gr.,=non-drunkenness], variety of quartz, violet to purple in color, used as a gem. It is the most highly valued of the semiprecious quartzes. ). The 12 questions take Grade 4 students 20 minutes to complete. Older groups have a scavenger hunt without letters to assist in completing the words. Gold panning is an exciting hands-on activity (Fig. 5) because most people have a touch of gold fever Noun 1. gold fever - greed and the contagious excitement of a gold rush fever - intense nervous anticipation; "in a fever of resentment" . Materials consist of gold, prepared specifically for panning and mixed with local sand. The gold/sand mixture is then placed in shallow, water-filled, children's swimming pools and panned using commercial gold pans. Gold is purchased at market price, which is expensive; however, the gold is prepared for gold panning at 18 mesh size and is used sparingly, so an ounce lasts a long time. Participants take home one piece of gold taped to a card. To purchase gold for panning, contact Noreen Sailer Sail´er n. 1. A sailor. 2. A ship or other vessel; - with qualifying words descriptive of speed or manner of sailing; as, a heavy sailer; a fast sailer s>. , Box 39 Dawson, YT, Y0B 1G0, Phone/Fax 1-867-993-5080. Rock Garden The Peter Russell Rock Garden (Fig. 6) provides an opportunity for museum visitors to look at rocks in samples larger than typical hand specimens. The 50-plus rocks in the garden are very large, ranging from 50 kg to 5 tonnes, and cover a vast span of geological history Geological history describes geological events that account for the stratigraphy, petrology and structure (see structural geology) seen in rocks or earth materials. See geologic timescale. , from an Archean banded iron-formation boulder from Timiskaming, ON, to quartzite quartzite, usually metamorphic rock composed of firmly cemented quartz grains. Most often it is white, light gray, yellowish, or light brown, but is sometimes colored blue, green, purple, or black by included minerals. from Desbarats, ON that exhibits striae engraved en·grave tr.v. en·graved, en·grav·ing, en·graves 1. To carve, cut, or etch into a material: engraved the champion's name on the trophy. 2. by a Pleistocene glacier. The rock garden is also a popular spot for faculty, staff and student lunches and coffee breaks, allowing informal learning to take place. [FIGURE 5 OMITTED] [FIGURE 6 OMITTED] Gem Show Each year the Earth Sciences Museum helps host the University of Waterloo Science Open House and Gem and Mineral Show. The event takes place in the March Networks Exhibit Atrium and adjacent buildings. Features include hands-on chemistry, a chemistry magic show, mineral and gem dealers, and displays by area museums, artists and gem and mineral enthusiasts. Invited speakers give public lectures and there are demonstrations of crafts such as rock polishing Rock polishing is a process whereby rough stone is polished using simple machines to produce attractive stones. The most common means is tumble polishing, but there is also vibratory polishing. , gem faceting and polishing, and stone sphere-making. Museum activities such as the fossil-fish dig and gold panning are also offered. The two-day event is typically attended by 1500 people. Groundwater Festival The museum also participates in the annual Waterloo Wellington Children's Groundwater Festival. This event features presentations and hands-on educational activities examining such things as the physical science of groundwater; groundwater as a resource; the water cycle; the interaction and interdependence of people, plants and animals with water; an historical perspective on groundwater; and groundwater and the environment. The curator is a member of the advisory board that develops some of the activities used during the event, and participates in the presentation of activities to 4000 children per year. The Groundwater festival details may be viewed at [http://www.wwcgf.com/wwcgf/index .aspx]. The festival is associated with the Children's Water Education Council, which assists 20 festivals throughout Ontario. Details at [http: //www.cwec.ca/]. UWaterloosaurus Store A dinosaur painting was commissioned for the museum and an empty store was made available free of charge at Waterloo Town Square Mall for two months while the painting progressed. Every Saturday for eight weeks the store was open to view with artist Peter Etril Snyder on hand, together with a program of children's art and craft activities, movies and presentations. Podcasts Podcasts provide a new way to provide an informal geological education. The museum has a podcast of a two-hour walking tour around Waterloo, titled 'Rock around Uptown Waterloo; which allows people to see the various building stones that have been used in their construction. The requisite movie or MP3 files, along with PDF (Portable Document Format) The de facto standard for document publishing from Adobe. On the Web, there are countless brochures, data sheets, white papers and technical manuals in the PDF format. maps, can be downloaded from the museum website. Other podcasts are being prepared, including 'Rock around Kitchener,' and tours of the museum and rock garden. Visual Heritage The museum assisted with geological aspects of visual heritage projects for Sarnia--Lambton and Manitoulin Island. In the Sarnia--Lambton project, Peter Russell described the formation of oil, fossils of the Arkona area and formation of concretions at Kettle Point. Fossils from the area and the diorama of Hungry Hollow Hungry Hollow can refer to one of these places using it as a nickname :
Books The museum has participated in the publication of four books Four Books Chinese Sishu Ancient Confucian texts used as the basis of study for civil service examinations (see Chinese examination system) in China (1313–1905). intended to popularize pop·u·lar·ize tr.v. pop·u·lar·ized, pop·u·lar·iz·ing, pop·u·lar·iz·es 1. To make popular: A famous dancer popularized the new hairstyle. 2. aspects of geology. The first, published in 1993, was the illustrated children's book Wally & Deanna's Groundwater Adventure to the Unsaturated unsaturated /un·sat·u·rat·ed/ (un-sach´ur-at?ed) 1. not holding all of a solute which can be held in solution by the solvent. 2. denoting compounds in which two or more atoms are united by double or triple bonds. Zone (Fig. 7). Written by Leanne Appleby and museum curator Peter Russell, with illustrations and book design by E Restagno, the book follows the adventures of Wally the Worm and Deanna the Raindrop. Other books in the series are 'Wally and Deanna's Quartz Crystal Adventure' and 'Blackflies to Blueberries, Wally and Deanna's Wetland Adventure'. The Groundwater Adventure has been translated into Portuguese, French and German. The book has proven popular, and has sold, as of this writing, roughly 10 000 copies in English and over 6000 copies in Portuguese (in Brazil). Aimed at an adult outdoor enthusiast and naturalist market, Manitoulin Rocks--Rocks, Fossils and Landscape of Manitoulin Island is both a field guide to geologically interesting places on the world's largest freshwater island, and an introduction to the geological concepts needed to understand them. It was written by University of Waterloo professors Mario Coniglio and Paul Karrow and curator Peter Russell, and was published by the UW Earth Sciences Museum, in partnership with the Geological Association of Canada The Geological Association of Canada promotes and develops the geological sciences in Canada. The organization holds conferences, meetings and exhibitions for the discussion of geological problems and the exchange of views in matters related to geology. (GAC GAC Great American Country GAC Global Assembly Cache (Microsoft .NET) GAC Global Assembly Cache GAC Granular Activated Carbon GAC Gustavus Adolphus College (St. ) and the Gore Bay Museum in the town of Gore Bay, Manitoulin Island. This book has also been selling briskly. [FIGURE 7 OMITTED] Donations to the Museum Donations are a wonderful way to improve the collection and also provide publicity for the museum. Recent successes include the donation of signage for the Peter Russell Rock Garden, and enhancement of our Parasaurolophus dinosaur with the addition of a back leg and commissioned artwork. The latter project was also supported by a Canadian Geological Foundation grant. Teeth and a lower jaw tusk of a mastodon from Highgate, ON, were donated by Shirley Fenton of Waterloo (Fig. 8); the donation and accompanying story about this, the most complete Ontario mastodon ever found (now residing in Bismark, North Dakota), were featured in local and international media articles and resulted in many requests for public lectures. Google 'Highgate Mastodon' and follow the links! Colin Hunter of the Kitchener--Waterloo Record received GAC's Yves O. Fortier Earth Science Journalism Award for the best Earth sciences article of 2007 for his story about the mastodon. Sometimes, world-class specimens are donated to the museum. A few years ago Joseph Sonser of Kitchener, former manager at International Mogul Mine, Silvermines in the Republic of Ireland, donated spectacular crystals he had collected in the course of his job. These important mineral samples were shared with the Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum, commonly known as the ROM (rhyming with Tom), is a major museum for world culture and natural history in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. . Mr. Sonser's recollections of his career were recorded at the time and add greatly to the value of the collection. [FIGURE 8 OMITTED] Last September a donation of mining equipment from the Cobalt Historical Society was received. The ore carts, rails and mucking machine will become part of a new mining exhibit using an existing museum tunnel that will be decorated as a mine tunnel. Fundraising is taking place at present for this project. Monetary donations enable us to purchase collections when they become available. Last December we obtained a collection of dinosaur artwork through partial donation and purchase. Major fundraising also created an endowment for the museum. The Conestoga Rovers Endowment allows us to hire co-op students, provide our programs free of charge to visiting groups, and support other museum projects. A fundraising effort has now started to support a full-time curator. The Canadian Geological Foundation has been very supportive of our projects, providing funding for the rock garden, purchase of dinosaur replicas, book publishing, and production of a music tape/CD with Chris Rawlings. Volunteers Volunteers are a valuable resource for a museum. We have student volunteers from university, high schools, the Kitchener--Waterloo Gem and Mineral Club, and retirees. They assist with the hands-on activities for class visits at gem shows, and Canada Day and Earth Day celebrations. They also assist with writing labels, exhibit text, and the collections database. POSSIBILITIES FOR OTHER MUSEUMS Whereas the purpose-built space in the EIT building that houses the museum provides facilities much more luxurious than those available to other small museums, many of the programs and activities are possible on a modest budget. Talks--both in-house and at external venues--rely on media equipment available at most universities and other institutions, and can make use of photographs taken by faculty and staff. The key to success is a knowledgeable and enthusiastic presenter who can bring the material to life and make it accessible to a non-specialist audience. Hands-on activities, such as the fossil-fish dig and gold panning, can be carried out with modest expenditures. Once again, it is important that the activity is supervised by someone who can put it into a proper geological context so that it achieves more than just keeping participants busy. Podcasts are another way a museum can provide education to the broader community at minimal expense. Using photographs and text generated by museum or institution staff, with the final result available on a website, podcasts provide a way for institutions with no museum facilities to provide an educational opportunity for the community. Even a rock garden is a possibility for a museum with some outdoor space available. By soliciting donations from local building stone and other materials suppliers, as well as collecting glacial erratics and other local stone, it should be possible to accumulate a collection of rocks that can be incorporated into campus landscaping, and combined with signage to provide some information about each specimen. Participation at local events and activities, such as gem shows and even non-geological events, e.g. Canada Day celebrations, can provide an opportunity for a museum to raise its profile and reach out to people who may not otherwise be exposed to science or geology. CONCLUSION Although geological sciences remain somewhat of a mystery to most of the public, an enduring fascination with dinosaurs, especially among children, and a general interest in gems, precious metals Precious Metals Valuable metals such as gold, iridium, palladium, platinum, and silver. Notes: Investing in precious metals can be done either by purchasing the physical asset, or by purchasing futures contracts for the particular metal. and other minerals, attract people to Earth science and provide the means to further learning. Small earth sciences museums are in a good position to capitalize on this by providing opportunities for their communities to take a closer look at geology in an entertaining way. The UW Earth Sciences Museum has been doing this for over 40 years and its success is demonstrated by growing attendance and interest. While other museums will have different resources, the basics of people and specimens are always present and, with a bit of imagination and enthusiasm, can be incorporated into a variety of outreach programs. Peter I. Russell University of Waterloo 200 University Avenue West Waterloo, ON, N2L N2L Liquid Nitrogen N2L Newton's Second Law (mechanics) 3G1 E-mail: esmuseum@uwaterloo.ca John E. Motz University of Waterloo 200 University Avenue West Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1 |
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