If you read the recent post on this blog and were hoping for a real time-lapse video of the construction so far on our new Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science, your wish has been granted. The following video was released today, and condenses months of work into just 14 seconds. Watch closely!
You’re invited to a film screening at the Museum! Students in the Museum’s Upward Bound program have been serving as Eco-Ambassadors to south Florida’s unique environments, and with support from a State Farm Youth Advisory Board grant, have created their own Public Service Announcement videos. These videos are meant to bring awareness to the environmental issues in our community, such as water conservation and the exploitation of our natural resources. Check out the flyer below for more information, and we’ll see you there!
If you’ve ever seen one of those time-lapse videos – bustling crowds at Grand Central Station, swirling clouds steadily forming into a hurricane, or construction workers erecting a building bit by bit – it really makes you appreciate the action in a whole new way. In the case of those clouds, if you see just one image, it may look calm and serene. But if you see a sequence of images showing a hurricane forming, it can feel like an intense, dynamic spectacle. It’s kind of like a zoetrope, which is a device that has been around for thousands of years, that gives the illusion of motion through a series of images in rapid succession. In the image below, the little girl is watching the zoetrope at the Miami Science Museum.
When the little girl leans down to look through the slits in the side of the rotating cylinder, the images of the still-frame horses appear to be one galloping horse.
Documenting the construction of the new Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science is like that zoetrope. On any given day, a photo can be taken of lots of workers doing their jobs bit by bit. But looking at a few photos in sequence, you can begin to see the changes in action. Just imagine how the building and these workers would look in a time-lapse video. Or even through a zoetrope. Stay tuned for more action!
June 20, 2012 (For reference, notice the new Perez Art Museum Miami under construction in the background, and the Adrienne Arsht Center to the left)
September 10, 2012 (from the same viewpoint)
November 28, 2012 (from the same viewpoint; the Arsht Center is just off the image to the left)
It’s important for children – the next generation – to understand that food doesn’t magically appear on grocery store shelves. Growing food takes knowledge and skill, and in an urban environment like Miami, it’s important for our health, as well as the health of the environment, to have locally grown food. Hydroponics, the growing of plants using mineral nutrients and water – without soil – is a sustainable method of food production that provides more opportunties for urban gardening. The Museum has recently built on-site hydroponics exhibits, and now, with grants from the Dunwalke Foundation and the Envionmental Protection Agency, is working to install small hydroponic gardens at local schools. The Museum’s Sara Tomeo, who is leading the project, is working mostly with 4th and 5th grade students from several area elementary schools, including Barbara Hawkins, North Miami, Miami Springs, Mater Academy East, Southside, and Coconut Grove, as well as Nature Links, an organization on Virginia Key that specializes in helping young adults with disabilities.
Teachers at partner schools are encouraged to have groups of students help plant the system, and so far, eager students have done much of the work in setting up many of the systems. The goal is to have students learn to grow their own food throughout the school year, learn where some of the food they eat comes from, and see how different plants grow. Additionally, each school will learn how urban gardening can be applied based on the location of each school. For example, many students in Southside Elementary, located in Brickell, live in high-rise buildings, and this project will teach them that they can have a garden at home - even if they don’t have a yard!
Barbara Hawkins Elementary: Students’ indoor hydroponics system, called “Emily’s Garden System,” sits on a classroom table with an adjustable grow-light to promote growth.
Barbara Hawkins Elementary: Students planted basil, rosemary, lemon balm, a tomato plant, and lettuce. Science teacher Craig Uptgrow has students monitoring growth rate, taking height measurements, and keeping records of what they do with the system.
Sara Tomeo has a background in Environmental Design and has worked as an intern at Disney’s “The Land” pavilion at EPCOT, working in hydroponic greenhouses. Sara has now helped to design and build the hydroponic exhibits at the Museum, and will play a role in the Museum’s plans to build aquaponics systems, which is another kind of sustainable food production system involving aquatic life.
With the help of a State Farm Youth Advisory Board grant and the Museum’s Reclamation Project, students participating in the Museum’s Upward Bound program are serving as Eco-Ambassadors to south Florida’s unique environments. We have all seen the PSAs (public service announcements) that make you stop and think, like NBC’s “The More You Know…” series. Now, our student Eco-Ambassadors are creating their own PSAs in a 5-day One Water Workshop. They’re learning about the whole process of creating a PSA, from scripting to filming to editing, and doing it all themselves in small groups of 4 or 5. The teamwork and creativity brought out in a project like this represents the same kind of effort that we need to apply to involving our communities in environmental conservation. These students are taking a first step towards that goal, by creating their PSAs on topics ranging from natural resource exploitation to restoration to environmental economics. The final films will be finished on January 7, and will be posted to the Miami Science Museum and State Farm Youth Advisory Board websites. So be sure to check back! Because the more you know…
It can be difficult for some schools to provide opportunities to get their students to the Museum. And it’s a goal of the Museum to involve our entire community (and beyond) in the amazing adventure of science. So through our Science Stars program, we are making an effort to go out into the community to reach those students who are not able to visit us. Between now and the opening of our new Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science, we will work with Miami-Dade County Public Schools to select nine schools per year and connect that school with a “Science Star” who will give a special presentation about their field of science and what inspired them to pursue that career. Each school, along with children’s families, will then be invited to a free event at the Museum where they will receive a free 1-year family membership to the Museum – so they can come back again!
In December the program continued with a visit to Comstock Elementary School with Science Star Lindsay Bartholomew. With a background in physics and astronomy, and currently the Science Curator for the Miami Science Museum, Lindsay shared stories about what inspired her to pursue a career in science (those first glimpses at the Moon through a telescope, hearing from her Grandpa at 5 years old that the Sun was 93 MILLION miles away), and shared other stories about some unique experiences that continue to inspire her (like going on an expedition to Antarctica to learn about climate change). During the presentation, students were taken on a trek into Antarctica (did you know that baby penguins go to “penguin kindergarten” when they’re old enough for their parents to go get dinner, but not quite old enough to be left alone?), and then on a journey through the solar system (did you know that Saturn would float if you could find a bathtub big enough?). Then Lindsay led the students in a Jeopardy-like trivia game, and made a scientific discovery – Comstock Elementary has lots of potential future scientists!
Do you know the question for this trivia answer in the “Planet Puzzle” category? The students did!
“I call this my magic window.” -Captain Nemo from the 1916 version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Sp.69, Sp.71, Sp. 72, 1924, watercolor on paper 11 3/4 x 9 inches
The Roy Miner Collection was donated to Miami Science Museum in 1976 and sat untouched in the archives room until it was re-discovered again in 2000 by Rachel Delovio who was the Collections Manager at the time. The archive itself consists of 4500 glass lanternslides and negatives made between the 1920s to the 1940s as well as various ephemera from the period. The story of how it was found again is dear to our hearts, because the practice of carefully combing through and looking for unknown clues at the Miami Science Museum is what The Curious Vault column is based on. In exploring the Miner Collection our team had a unique “EUREKA” moment when we came across a peculiar series of watercolors depicting various underwater scenes and specimens.
The Roy Miner Collection (photo by Paul Stoppi)
On the sketches themselves, 6 in total, are various notations written in pencil, but one consistency screamed out for further investigation. They are numbered, “Tube Sketch No. 3” for instance. We decided to spread them out to check the notations on the pictures and saw that some are simply numbered, while others have longer descriptions. Two in particular say “Sketched from Mr. Williamson’s Submarine Tube”. It was then that we realized that these watercolors were actually made underwater (!) at Hog Key Inlet in the Bahamas in 1924.
Tube Sketch no. 2, 1924, watercolor on paper 9 x 11 3/4 inches
Diving a little deeper we found an image of the apparatus at work. Captain Charles Williamson initially built the device around the turn of the 20th century for the purposes of treasure salvage. A 1911 article in the New York Times shows the excitement around the search for $500,000 in silver from the shipwreck Merida off the shores of Williamson’s hometown Norfolk Virginia. However, by the 1920s, the treasure of the Merida was still unrecovered, and it seems Williamson’s sons had begun to understand the Tube’s power as a facilitator to the study of underwater life. They decided that the Tube was perfectly suited for documenting underwater life, particularly through photography, and most importantly motion pictures (see January 1915 article in The American Magazine).
Williamson Submarine Tube attached to the boat
The Tube took many different technical variations, but it’s most public and important contribution to underwater exploration was the production of the groundbreaking cinematic photography used in the 1916 version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Skip to 30:00 into the YouTube clip for underwater footage, or more interestingly 59:10 for the footage of the sea monster that the Williamson Brothers patented a year after their production company made the film. The movie was the first time the general public had ever been exposed to underwater motion picture footage. Think of what it must have been like at the time to see this unbelievable motion picture. This is a fascinating link to film history that the Miami Science Museum can make to real objects in their collection.
The watercolor sketches are currently on display at the museum for public viewing. They were made by Charles E. Olsen, whose biographical information is scarce. He appears to be a highly skilled amateur, and the watercolors themselves are beautiful in their near perfection. Most importantly is their uniqueness to the time period. These paintings were made underwater in 1924! It appears, as these pictures show, that the Williamson brothers went on to utilize the Submarine Tube for not only entertainment, but also scientific discovery. Their contribution to the niche world of early underwater photography and exploration is significant. This series of watercolors is just one of the many treasures to be uncovered inside The Curious Vault. Endless fascination lay hidden and ready for all of our eyes to see. We are so glad to be a part of this cultural excavation and hope that you will stay with our continued journey of the Museum’s hidden secrets in the New Year.
Tube Sketch no. 3
5. Algae and Digitiform Gorgonia
Tube Sketch no. 7
Special thanks to Rachel Delovio for re-discovering the Roy Miner Collection and The Rebreather Site for the New York Times Image and the Sea Monster Patent. Check out their site for more images of Mr. Williamson’s Submarine Tube. If you have any knowledge about the artist Charles E. Olsen please contact the Museum.
The Curious Vault is a bi-weekly online cabinet of curiosities featuring objects from the collection of the Miami Science Museum, presented by writer Nathaniel Sandler and Kevin Arrow, Art & Collections Manager. For more information, email karrow@miamisci.org.
Channel 10 reporter Christina Vazquez speaks with Museum President Gillian Thomas at the construction site for the new Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science
Museum President and CEO Gillian Thomas, Vice President of Marketing Tony Lima, and the workers at the construction site for the new Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science had a very special visitor this week. Channel 10 WPLG reporter Christina Vazquez joined them on “the plaza level” of the new Museum building – which was a first for everyone!
For humans, if your home has a recognizable scent, that may or may not be a good thing. But for bees, it is a necessary part of life, and of finding its way home. Bees find their way to their own hive because of a distinct scent that they can recognize. If you want to see a real beehive up close, and safely, you can even come to the Museum and see our beehive exhibit, made possible by the Junior League of Miami.
Because bees are are so beguiling in many ways, they are the subject of one of the Museum’s Early Childhood Hands-On Science (ECHOS) curriculum units. After receiving training on the materials from Museum education staff, pre-school teachers throughout Miami-Dade County and Head Start schools, lead the children in exploring their world, as well as the bees’ world. The children learned first-hand that bees know which hive is their own only by the scent, by becoming bees themselves. Each was given a cup with a scent, and they had to explore their classroom to find the hive that matched their scent. But they did not want to stop exploring even after they found their hive. One wanted to draw his own beehive based on the ECHOS Busy, Buzzing Bees book, one wanted to see how the beehive model in the classroom compared to photos of real hives, and a couple wanted to match up the scents of all the “hives” in the room. These children in the photos below are true explorers.
On Saturday, December 8th, 60 Upward Bound Eco-Ambassadors joined a group of volunteers from Miami-Dade College in replanting almost 1,000 mangrove propagules at R. Hardy Matheson Preserve. The Preserve is undergoing a major management effort by Miami-Dade County to remove exotic plants, replant native habitats such as mangroves, and create a multi-use protected area for recreational activities.
In all, over 100 volunteers participated in planting mangrove seedlings that had been exhibited on a wall at Miami Science Museum since November 2011, as part of the Museum’s Reclamation Project. Specifically, they planted young mangrove plants along the banks of the Snapper Creek, a historical waterway. Not only does Snapper Creek have historical significance, as evidenced by a 500 B.C. Tequesta Indian habitation mound, but it is also one of the largest tracts of coastal native habitat in Miami-Dade County. Until recently, the banks of the creek where the volunteers planted were covered in large mounds of landfill which were dumped there as part of periodic dredging of the creek for the purpose of recreational navigation. These mounds were also, until recently, covered in invasive plants such as Australian pine and Brazilian pepper, and devoid of any native vegetation. Thanks to the efforts of these Eco-Ambassadors, this area will once again be covered in mangroves and associated plants which will provide food and shelter for native birds, mammals and reptiles, such as the endangered American crocodile and the West Indian manatee.
