MOXI2019MAPS: Sophia Rowen- Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

signage in mammals hall

I attended the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History as my field trip to another informal science institution. It was a quiet morning at the museum and I found myself in the Curiosity Lab, exhibit halls, and courtyard by myself. I had interacted with the staff at the front office when I got my sticker, but this was the only interaction I had with the floor staff for about an hour.

I first checked out the Curiosity Lab, because this name reminded me of our Exploration Lab at the MOXI. Turns out it was fairly similar and reminded me of a smaller version of MOXI packed into a room. The Curiosity Lab had a microscope where you could place specimens (e.g. shells, butterflies) underneath and look at them up close. We have one of these same microscopes at the MOXI in the light track but we have it so that you can manipulate the picture further by drawing on it. I noticed that the space was mostly for children and families.

There was a space towards the back which mimicked a campsite, and there were plenty of tactile experiences, for example, skins of bears, skunks, and foxes that you could touch.

My favorite part of the Curiosity Lab was the Nature Exchange. I picked up a brochure at the front of the museum because it caught my eye and then I saw it in the Curiosity Lab. I loved this part of the lab because it emphasizes discovering, collecting, learning, and trading. This program is ongoing and allows guests to bring in natural objects like bird material, cultural artifacts, dead animals etc., and trade them for points. This is so cool because I learned about Curiosity Cabinets in the olden days and loved the idea of collecting cool things to put on display. I learned all this information from the helpful educator stationed in the Curiosity Lab

My favorite exhibit was the Hall of Birds. They arranged hundreds of birds by what they eat (e.g. pants, animals, seeds) and I was surprised to see so many different kinds of birds so perfectly intact. This exhibit also featured a migration screen where you could pick a type of bird and see where they migrate through the year. I approached this screen and the various activities in the Curiosity Lab thinking that they were open-ended but they were not since there was a lot of signage and the guest could make very few decisions.

The MOXI and the SB Museum of Natural History are drastically different. One notable difference is the size of the spaces. There are a lot of disconnected parts of the Natural History Museum and many outdoor spaces. The exhibit spaces are inviting, but only informative if you read the signage or ask a docent. There is little interaction by the guest and therefore there are few docents around to facilitate learning. One experience that caught me off guard from this field trip was when I arrived at the front office, a older gentlemen was waiting to have a piece of cloth inspected to see if it was authentic. I thought this was cool and the women at the front desk gave him a number to contact the director of anthropology at the museum. This got me thinking whether this man was a member and knew that the museum was a source of knowledge or if he was just passing through the neighborhood.