Nature on Display
This exhibit uses setting and background to effectively immerse fellow museum goers and I. The lighting gives you the feeling of being on the sea floor among the other undersea organism. The exhibit talks a lot about the biology that can be observed underwater but also puts emphasis on what we still are yet to understand about the underwater environment, how we as humans have discovered so much on the surface but so little of what is beneath the water. The immersive use of mimicking the condition of the seafloor, people witnessing the exhibit experience the exhibit as a member of the biome and place emphasis on the abiotic and biotic factors of the domain that is the ocean. This was enjoyable because I was able to learn of various ocean life unknown to me prior.
Nature and Ethics
The Butterfly Rainforest is an example of the delicate ecosystems that exist here on earth and how we should be working to protect them. The Butterfly Rainforest is a way for us to experience the beauty of nature that Leopold asks for humanity to protect. It was an enjoying experience for all my senses, allowing me and other museum goers to witness that a pristine ecosystem would look like. I was overwhelmed with the beauty and majesty of the wildlife inside the Butterfly Rainforest, like the same way music and visual arts are a form of beauty. This brings up the question, if we choose to protect paintings behind glass, why would we not place better protection on these organisms and their ecosystems.
Nature and the Human Spirit
The mammoth fossil hanging from the top of the lobby is catches any patrons eye and is impossible to miss. Also in the lobby are cases with artifacts from a different time as our own and archaeological tools. Being in the lobby surrounded by artifacts from a past that almost seems like an entirely different world, it is easy to recognize the mystery of the world during a time before mine. The time that we as homo sapiens have existed is microscopic compared to the time that the earth has existed. There is beauty in the mystery of the history of earth, that we have yet to discover. Compared to the creatures that have roamed the planet for a longer period than us, we are microscopic, physically and in the grand scheme of history itself.