Author: Henry Neville HutchinsonPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dinosaurs
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
Extinct Monsters
Author: Henry Neville HutchinsonPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dinosaurs
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
Extinct Monsters to Deep Time
Author: Diana E. MarshPublisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1800732015
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Via the Smithsonian Institution, an exploration of the growing friction between the research and outreach functions of museums in the 21st century. Describing participant observation and historical research at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History as it prepared for its largest-ever exhibit renovation, Deep Time, the author provides a grounded perspective on the inner-workings of the world’s largest natural history museum and the social processes of communicating science to the public. From the introduction: In exhibit projects, the tension plays out between curatorial staff—academic, research, or scientific staff charged with content—and exhibitions, public engagement, or educational staff—which I broadly group together as “audience advocates” charged with translating content for a broader public. I have heard Kirk Johnson, Sant Director of the NMNH, say many times that if you look at dinosaur halls at different museums across the country, you can see whether the curators or the exhibits staff has “won.” At the American Museum of Natural History in New York, it was the curators. The hall is stark white and organized by phylogeny—or the evolutionary relationships of species—with simple, albeit long, text panels. At the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Johnson will tell you, it was the “exhibits people.” The hall is story driven and chronologically organized, full of big graphic prints, bold fonts, immersive and interactive spaces, and touchscreens. At the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, where Johnson had previously been vice president and chief curator, “we actually fought to a draw.” That, he says, is the best outcome; a win on either side skews the final product too extremely in one direction or the other. This creative tension, when based on mutual respect, is often what makes good exhibitions.
Life on Display
Author: Karen A. RaderPublisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022607983X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482
Book Description
Rich with archival detail and compelling characters, Life on Display uses the history of biological exhibitions to analyze museums’ shifting roles in twentieth-century American science and society. Karen A. Rader and Victoria E. M. Cain chronicle profound changes in these exhibitions—and the institutions that housed them—between 1910 and 1990, ultimately offering new perspectives on the history of museums, science, and science education. Rader and Cain explain why science and natural history museums began to welcome new audiences between the 1900s and the 1920s and chronicle the turmoil that resulted from the introduction of new kinds of biological displays. They describe how these displays of life changed dramatically once again in the 1930s and 1940s, as museums negotiated changing, often conflicting interests of scientists, educators, and visitors. The authors then reveal how museum staffs, facing intense public and scientific scrutiny, experimented with wildly different definitions of life science and life science education from the 1950s through the 1980s. The book concludes with a discussion of the influence that corporate sponsorship and blockbuster economics wielded over science and natural history museums in the century’s last decades. A vivid, entertaining study of the ways science and natural history museums shaped and were shaped by understandings of science and public education in the twentieth-century United States, Life on Display will appeal to historians, sociologists, and ethnographers of American science and culture, as well as museum practitioners and general readers.
Giants of the Lost World
Author: Donald R. ProtheroPublisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588345734
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
More than a hundred years ago, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a novel called The Lost World with the exciting premise that dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts still ruled in South America. Little did Conan Doyle know, there were terrifying monsters in South America--they just happened to be extinct. In fact, South America has an incredible history as a land where many strange creatures evolved and died out. In his book Giants of the Lost World: Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Monsters of South America, Donald R. Prothero uncovers the real science and history behind this fascinating story. The largest animal ever discovered was the huge sauropod dinosaur Argentinosaurus, which was about 130 feet long and weighed up to 100 tons. The carnivorous predator Giganotosaurus weighed in at more than 8 tons and measured more than 47 feet long, dwarfing the T. rex in comparison. Gigantic anacondas broke reptile records; possums evolved into huge saber-toothed predators; and ground sloths grew larger than elephants in this strange, unknown land. Prothero presents the scientific details about each of these prehistoric beasts, provides a picture of the ancient landscapes they once roamed, and includes the stories of the individuals who first discovered their fossils for a captivating account of a lost world that is stranger than fiction.
Lost Animals
Author: John WhitfieldPublisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588346986
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Meet the incredible animals that have disappeared due to competition, mass extinctions, hunting, and human activity. Lost Animals brings back to life some of the most charismatic creatures to inhabit the planet. It captures the imagination with more than 200 incredible photographs, artworks of fossils, and scientific drawings of charming creatures like dodos, paraceratherium (the largest land mammal), spinosaurus (the biggest carnivorous dinosaur), placeoderm fishes (the sharks of their day), and more! Lost Animals is a captivating documentation of evolution and extinction. Each chapter focuses on a specific time in Earth's history, from the Cambrian explosion (the most intense surge of evolution the world has ever experienced) to present times, with profiles of the key species that lived then. From long extinct animals to Lazarus species--animals that were thought to be extinct before being rediscovered--this book takes readers on a journey through Earth's natural history, highlighting the world's biggest animal losses and its moments of conservational hope.
Sabertooth Cat
Author: Janet RieheckyPublisher: Capstone
ISBN: 9781429601177
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36
Book Description
"Simple text and illustrations describe sabertooth cats, how they lived, and how they became extinct"--Provided by publisher.
Beyond the Dinosaurs!
Author: Howard ZimmermanPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0689841132
Category : Animals, Fossil
Languages : en
Pages : 72
Book Description
Describes the age after the dinosaurs where huge beasts, reptiles, and flying creatures terrorized the earth.
Fruita
Author: Denise HightPublisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738581729
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
William Pabor arrived in Western Colorado before the advent of irrigation, and the land presented a barren and desolate sight. But he saw something entirely different. "In the spring of 1884, lying on the bare floor of a log cabin on the site of what is now the town of Fruita, I watched the moonbeams play on the Roan Cliffs and across Pinon Mesa," Pabor wrote. "The silence of centuries seemed resting upon the plain. . . . But visions of the possibilities of the future swept before me. I saw homes founded, I saw family circles gathered together. I saw vineyards and orchards, and rose-embowered cottages in which love and happiness and contentment abode. . . . I heard the merry voices of children yet to be born. I heard the singing of harvesters bringing in the sheaves of golden grain." Pabor soon turned vision into reality and founded the town of Fruita.
Creatures of Another Age
Author: Sir Arthur Conan DoylePublisher:
ISBN: 9781948405744
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
The discovery of fossils of extinct species like the pterodactyl, iguanodon, and woolly mammoth during the nineteenth century caused an upheaval in the scientific world and challenged long-held religious beliefs about the creation and history of the world. But it also sparked the imaginations of countless writers, and it wasn't long before these prehistoric monsters began to appear in stories of adventure, science fiction, fantasy, and horror, as well as in more surprising forms, such as a ballad sung by an ichthyosaurus or a mock Elizabethan verse drama with a cast of primordial creatures. This volume collects some of the most fascinating Victorian writing on dinosaurs and other prehistoric monsters, including stories, poems, drama, and essays, and features contributions by well known names like Arthur Conan Doyle, George Sand, and Jack London, along with many other once-popular but now-forgotten writers, and includes a new introduction by Richard Fallon.
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