The “Climate Change” exhibit at The Field Museum explores the science that is behind the world’s major change that has people on their toes. The visitors are presented with a wide array of displays, bright colors and jaw-dropping information that the exhibit has to offer.
As the atmosphere is warming up, humans and animals are starting to deal with the effect everyday. One of the eye-catching displays shows a sad polar bear walking through a garbage dump filled with plastic bags, metal, glass bottles and a broken television. Snow is sprinkled all over the polar bears surroundings. Climate change has altered the lives of polar bears as they try to survive on shrinking ice packs and they are forced to move into areas heavily populated by people.
“The polar bear in the display is real and the garbage dump it is walking on is a real story happening right now,” said Janet Hong, the project manager at The Field Museum.
The “Climate Change” exhibit intends to educate people who do not have science degrees, explained Hong, and it is best suited for students in junior high and older.
Significant reasons, such as wild weather and heat waves, have become more frequent and much more intense. The exhibit walks visitors through a rainfall with lightening and thunder to show the effects of intense storms that have become more common throughout the world. For example, flooding has occurred in India, China and the United States during this last decade.
An ice core model is based off of a real ice core in Greenland that is 1.9 miles long. The ice core is drilled from an ice cap and it can show 108,000 years worth of climate change This exhibit is intended to show the different techniques and innovations used to predict why these changes are occurring.
Active research institutes such as the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who collaborated with The Field Museum on this exhibit, research stories that can be used in exhibits to display to the public.
The “Climate Change” exhibit was brought from the history museum in New York, but it was changed to draw in more people.
“The colors chosen have an emotional effect on how you look or how long you stay at that display,” said Hong. She explained that the colors were made lighter and brighter to attract people rather than scare them away. Bright, bold reds were used to emphasis the burning effects of intense fires. Deep blue fonts were displayed to explain and reveal the cold and harsh winters around the world.
Colors weren’t the only important pieces of information. At the end of the exhibit was a black wall tacked with white pieces of paper written by visitors answering the question “How do you think we should tackle climate change?” The ideas ranged from going green to driving different types of cars. This was a creative and interesting way to interact with the visitors and to get people thinking about what they should do to change.
“The biggest difference you can make is changing what you do at home with your kids. Then they can take these things with them as they get older,” said Cindy Vong, from Channahon, Ill.
In the exhibit, there are hands-on activities such as touch-screens that display facts about how much carbon dioxide people can save in their home and city. Little gadgets and displays with captions, such as 3-D images of cities and the sun, keep visitors interested and invite people to learn more about the rising sea level and greenhouse gases.
“I learned how the climate changes and the different forms of energy in the world,” said Anna Bejarano of Toronto, who was with her 12-year-old son, Fredricko. She went on to explain that she wished she saw more solutions to climate change.
“The end of the exhibit was very pessimistic. It kept saying that it is going to take thousands of years to fix this mess and that it keeps getting worse,” said Bejarano.
The vast amount of information in the exhibit can teach anyone important facts about the science behind climate change.
“For our generation, there is no other important topic to talk about,” said Hong. She explained that this exhibit portrays intricate details and information more than any other museum of its kind.
No comments:
Post a Comment