Museum of Natural History

This week was a totally hectic week, Julia had her AP Art History Exam and her Spanish Lit exam and I had my Biology and Macro and Micro

Economics exams! Sadly, we only got to visit one museum

but starting next week we're doubling up on museums and will catch up on what we've missed out on.

On Monday we visited the Museum of Natural History! If you're not familiar with it, it's the museum from the movie Night at the Museum staring Ben Stiller. Once again, student admission into the museum was only 12 dollars for general admission, but if you wanted to see a special exhibit in addition (like an IMAX movie or a special show) it was 16 dollars and up. So, like MoMA, it wasn't too pricey and definitely well worth the 12 dollars.The first thing that caught our eye when we walked in were the famous dinosaur skeletons which we were very excited about seeing. They're absolutely enormous. The skeletons really set the tone for the rest of the museum in that they're breathtaking, extremely realistic looking, and very overwhelming. (It's not real by the way). We did not expect to be so fascinated by everything we saw.

We really liked the museum but from the second we walked in we were

really overwhelmed by all of the exhibits we wanted to see. To our right there was a butterfly exhibit, our left an "Asian Peoples" exhibit, and straight ahead was "African Mammals." We just didn't know where to start or how the best way to navigate through the museum was. When you first walk in it's kind of like maze-you can one of four doorways to go through and hope that somehow you'll make it back to where you started from and there are about five floors. Unfortunately, we got a little lost and I didn't make it back to the lobby of the museum, but I think we got to see most of it. If there's something we would do differently it would probably be to take a guided tour, because tour guides know where they're going and will make sure you get to see everything in the museum.

Without further ado, the first area of the museum we opted for was African and Asian

animals. Every knows that the Museum of Natural History is famous for its lifelike

portrayals of animals, so we immediately started off there. The exhibit didn't tell much of a story, it was honestly just really astounding depictions of animals. They literally looked like they were real, it was crazy! There were animals we had never heard of that were extinct or just very foreign. It got us excited for our upcoming trip to the Bronx Zoo.

Moving on, we went through the African, Asian, and South & Central American People exhibits. These were a lot more interesting and educational. Not that we remember much from

freshman year World History, but a lot of the information we were reading about did ring a bell (the Aztec history in particular). Something that we found really interesting that we

encountered in all of the cultural exhibits was the prevalence of shamanism in each culture. It always interesting when you see a parallel from somewhat opposite and independent cultures. For those of you who do not know, and to be honest Kara didn't know what it was either, but

thanks to Julia who just learned about Shamanism in her AP Art History Class, Shamanism is like a belief in human contact with the spiritual world. In a lot of ancient cultures it had a negative connotation, and it was more like being possessed than being a messenger of a higher being. In fact, come to think of it, the United State had its own version of shamanism-the Salem Witch Trial (hopefully that example helps you get a feel for what Shamanism is). Anyways, we thought that was really interesting how each exhibit had it's own depictions of Shamanism.

We also loved seeing all the clothing, jewelry, and ritual objects of each culture. We saw various kinds of Asian weapons, a model of Central American people around a campfire, and lots of beautiful African jewelry. It was like going in a time warp; something we probably otherwise never would have learned about or gotten to see.

We then proceeded to inarguably the best exhibit (both of our favorites) which was a history of the human being.

Human development and history is soooo incredibly

interesting and unbelievable. This exhibit began with a simple presentation of a strand of DNA and once we were done it went from a being just a strand of DNA to a full blown modern human. We saw hominid models, which were essentially three-foot tall, extremely hairy humans. We also saw models of Neanderthals and real Neanderthal skulls compared to human skulls. It was incredible to see how people have changed overtime and to really put our lives in a purely biological sense. It also made us think about the future of homo sapiens and how humans will further evolve.

It was so amazing, and human evolution in

general is just and incredible phenomena.

To end, we saw an exhibit on gems and minerals. We saw every kind of stone and a giant amethyst. One of Julia's favorites was a small collection of bright colored diamonds. The label said they were so rare, that only about 5% of diamonds are colored and only 2% of the colored ones are so heavily saturated as these ones. They were bright purple, blue, green, and orange, and were beautiful.

Overall, we really enjoyed the museum, although it was really overwhelming and it would probably take a full 24 hours to take in everything that's in there and thoroughly enjoy it. Also, we probably would have enjoyed the visit more if we went there with a purpose. By purpose we mean for example a class trip to study African animals, or to study astronomy, or biology. The museum has such a wide range of exhibits that are so incredibly thorough that it's probably best to see only exhibits related to one subject matter per trip. Nevertheless, we really enjoyed everything we got to see and would easily take a second trip to be able to soak up the rest of what the museum has to offer. An additional perk was being across from Central Park; we took the remainder of the day to walk around and reflect on everything we had just seen!

Overall rating: 7.5

Student Friendliness: 8

Do we recommend visiting: 10