The Museum of the Earth! A big name for a fairly small institution, but the name really reflects its topic rather than any huge ambition. Its task is big enough: to tell the story of life on earth through fossils. And it has the fossils to do it: with nearly 3 million, it’s one of the largest collections in the U.S.
Located on the edge of Ithaca, NY, in the Finger Lakes, it’s a bit too far for a day trip from New York City, but the Ithaca area, with its two big college campuses (Cornell University and Ithaca College) have enough to offer if you want to make it a weekend getaway. There’s boating and fishing, many hiking trails with lots of waterfalls (including some waterfalls in town!) and there’s a truly great farmers’ market.
But back to the museum! It is an education outreach of the Paleontological Research Institution, which is next door. In the museum you’ll find a great walkthrough of eras from the first appearance of life in the Cambrian era on through others to the present. Each area’s exhibits discuss not only what forms of life appeared at that time, but why and how they differed from the previous.
That’s the heart of the permanent exhibit, but it’s not all. There’s a prep lab, where a volunteer who’s been cleaning the bones of a large dinosaur for two years (and not near done) will explain, and there are other docents throughout the exhibits. There’s also a large whale skeleton, a nearly complete mammoth found just a few years ago not far from NYC, and temporary exhibits.
That’s the heart of the permanent exhibit, but it’s not all. There’s a prep lab, where a volunteer who’s been cleaning the bones of a large dinosaur for two years (and not near done) will explain, and there are other docents throughout the exhibits. There’s also a large whale skeleton, a nearly complete mammoth found just a few years ago not far from NYC, and temporary exhibits.
The current temporary exhibit (above)tells the story of recent excavations over several years on Shoals Island, Maine, which has a long history of habitation, almost to this century. Summer researchers have been digging, building a picture of the relationship between humans and the environment there, and asking—and partly answering—the question: How does paleontology relate to anthropology.
Visiting the museum, you’ll start your way at the top-floor lobby; the ramp down to the lower exhibit floor is lined by a mural of 544 tiles painted by artist Barbara Page; each one represents 1 million years since the beginning of life on earth, showing the changes that occurred with each one.
The museum is, of course, a magnet for Earth Science teachers, and we visited on the annual Teacher Resource day. My wife, a high school science teacher, has wanted to go for years. The program included lectures and tours—but one of the highlights for many was the opportunity to fill bags and boxes with samples of different fossils, rocks, shells, and even obsolete swim flippers larger than any I’ve ever seen.
The museum and PRI have an interesting history of their own. Dr. Gilbert Harris was the leading professor of paleontology at Cornell for many years, but near the end of his career he found himself in conflict with the school over the future of his fossil collection and about his journal, the Bulletins of American Paleontology, the oldest of its kind in the western hemisphere. Published from 1895 on, Harris not only wrote much of it, he set the type and ran the press. The press is in the lobby of the museum.
In 1932, two years before his death, he founded the Paleontological Research Institute, and moved his collections and the journal to an addition to his house. Two buildings later, it ended up in a former orphanage next to the museum’s site. In 1994, PRI made peace with Cornell and formally affiliated with it, although it’s independent. At that point, PRI began planning the Museum of the Earth, which opened in 2003.
There’s even a “glacier” to walk through…
