Ohio members of AppSciComm and guests from The Ohio State University met for an in-person visit to Ohio State’s Orton Geological Museum on August 15, 2024. The tour, led by museum director Dr. Loren Babcock, covered the history of Orton Hall, one of the oldest buildings on Ohio State’s campus, as well as many of the museum’s foundational exhibits such as Megalonyx, a giant ground sloth from North America, and Cryolophosaurus from Antarctica, which was discovered by an Ohio State professor.
Orton Hall was designed to reflect geologic time, and its architecture is a reflection of the geologic time scale. Originally, Orton Hall was constructed exclusively of Ohio building stone, arranged in correct stratigraphic order, from Silurian at the base to Carboniferous near the top of the bell tower. The intricate stone carvings inside and outside the building represent additional geologic features, including representations of trilobites, stages of human evolution and prehistoric animals.Grotesques along the outside of the bell tower bring in additional mammal and reptile representations and can be seen as part of a virtual tour available at ortongeologicalmuseum.osu.edu/visit-its-free/virtual-tour-orton-hall.
In addition to the public areas of the museum, members also got a glimpse behind the scenes into specimen storage and exhibit preparation, and learned about some of the foundational specimens housed at Orton. The School of Earth Sciences, where the museum is housed, offers a Natural History Museum Curation Certificate that includes hands-on experience in exhibit prep and display development for undergraduate and graduate students, who can also build their skills by working on exhibits for the museum.
The Orton Museum is free to visit and open to the public. For more information, visit ortongeologicalmuseum.osu.edu.
Future potential in-person events for AppSciComm’s Ohio members include visits to Ohio State’s Chadwick Arboretum, the Newark Earthworks, which were recently added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, and the Ohio Supercomputer Center. To be notified of future events, sign up for emails at appscicomm.org/contact or join us on Facebook at facebook.com/groups/appscicomm.
Commentaires