UCMP graduate student Kaitlin Maguire is working with the Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose to develop a new exhibit about the life of Lupé, a mammoth fossil that was found in the nearby Guadalupe River. This is the second in a series of blogs about Lupé and the new exhibit. Read Kaitlin’s first Lupé blog here.
Development of the Lupé Story Exhibition is moving along quickly as exhibit ideas come to life in prototyping labs, in which the development team at the Children’s Discovery Museum (CDM) sets up preliminary exhibits and opens them up to the public for feedback. Prototyping labs are an important aspect of developing an exhibition; the prototyping labs show how children interact with the exhibits and if the exhibits are successful in teaching the children something about Lupé, paleontology, and the process of science. Maureen Callanan, a professor at UC Santa Cruz, is also interested in the prototyping labs because it gives her and her graduate students a chance to study how children learn and interact with their parents and caregivers. Maureen and her students then provide additional feedback to the CDM team from a cognitive psychology perspective. Preliminary exhibits in the first prototyping lab included bone puzzles, play dioramas of the Pleistocene, and sifting for fossils. The most popular exhibit in the first prototyping lab was the dig site where some children spent hours using wooden tools to dig out fossils of Pleistocene mammals.
In December, we all got the chance to meet Roger Castillo, the San Jose citizen who found the Lupé fossils as he was walking his puppy along the Guadalupe River. Hearing Roger tell his story about the discovery was inspirational. As a citizen scientist, he is invested in the health of the Guadalupe River and all it has to offer, including fossils. Growing up in San Jose, he has monitored the river his entire life. Specifically, he has looked at salmon populations in the river, changes in the level of the river, and erosion caused by the river.
Upon hearing Roger enthusiastically describe how he discovered the fossils, the CDM team decided to focus on recreating the “discovery moment” for children to experience at the museum. The next prototyping lab will contain exhibits designed to create an experience of discovery, excitement, and curiosity. Children will discover fossils on a riverbank, uncover them, and ask questions about the fossils much in the way Roger did. This prototyping lab will be open through the spring. A third prototyping lab will open in the fall and final production of the exhibition will start afterward leading up to the grand opening in the spring of 2011.
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