Honors 396- Natural History and Culture Museums in the 21st Century
Course Description: "Traditionally, natural history and culture museums have served both as a repository for specimens and objects, and as a place of public education and engagement. The aim of this seminar is to explore both the public faces (exhibit/education programs) and the behind-the-scene spaces (collections/research) of a natural history and culture museum. Students will examine first-hand the Burke Museum's paleontology, biology, archaeology, and ethnology collections, and learn about contemporary museum research."
I was eager to join this 3-credit seminar course because it promised extensive tours of the Burke Museum, a building I had rarely visited during my four years on campus. I ended up not only getting to tour the behind-the-scenes collections at the Burke, but also listen to scientists and staff from different departments discuss their research and their role at the museum. It was staggering to hear about the amount of work that goes into maintaining museum specimens, creating new exhibits, and keeping track of the Burke's 16 million objects. Even more fascinating was getting to see a small portion of those objects, and watch Burke staff in action to get a sense of how the museum operates. Overall this was a fun, close-knit seminar class with only five other students besides myself.
My final project for this course was to design and present an idea for an interactive exhibit that the museum could potentially host, using objects from the Burke's collection. My exhibit idea focused on the effects of climate change on salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest, looking mainly at how this impacted tribes and what tribes were doing in response to climate change threats. Some photos I took during this class are included below!
Course Description: "Traditionally, natural history and culture museums have served both as a repository for specimens and objects, and as a place of public education and engagement. The aim of this seminar is to explore both the public faces (exhibit/education programs) and the behind-the-scene spaces (collections/research) of a natural history and culture museum. Students will examine first-hand the Burke Museum's paleontology, biology, archaeology, and ethnology collections, and learn about contemporary museum research."
I was eager to join this 3-credit seminar course because it promised extensive tours of the Burke Museum, a building I had rarely visited during my four years on campus. I ended up not only getting to tour the behind-the-scenes collections at the Burke, but also listen to scientists and staff from different departments discuss their research and their role at the museum. It was staggering to hear about the amount of work that goes into maintaining museum specimens, creating new exhibits, and keeping track of the Burke's 16 million objects. Even more fascinating was getting to see a small portion of those objects, and watch Burke staff in action to get a sense of how the museum operates. Overall this was a fun, close-knit seminar class with only five other students besides myself.
My final project for this course was to design and present an idea for an interactive exhibit that the museum could potentially host, using objects from the Burke's collection. My exhibit idea focused on the effects of climate change on salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest, looking mainly at how this impacted tribes and what tribes were doing in response to climate change threats. Some photos I took during this class are included below!
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ESRM 250- Geographic Information Systems
I re-took this course just for fun, as well as to boost my GIS knowledge before entering the workforce (given that I barely remembered anything from the last time I took the class). Ben Dittbrenner was a great teacher and it was fun being in his class again, though the work was pretty simple for me given I'd already learned it all before. As long as I had my morning coffee and wasn't feeling too sleepy in class, it was actually a pretty fun time. If you'd like to see my previous thoughts on this course, click the link below:
I re-took this course just for fun, as well as to boost my GIS knowledge before entering the workforce (given that I barely remembered anything from the last time I took the class). Ben Dittbrenner was a great teacher and it was fun being in his class again, though the work was pretty simple for me given I'd already learned it all before. As long as I had my morning coffee and wasn't feeling too sleepy in class, it was actually a pretty fun time. If you'd like to see my previous thoughts on this course, click the link below: