Museum provides a steady supply of interactive geology

On a rainy April afternoon, 48 first-graders from a local elementary school quietly file into the foyer of the UW–Madison Geology Museum. Just some of the 13,000 children to take a guided tour of the museum this year, they sit on the floor in front of a giant spinning globe. Their quietness turns boisterous as the children, along with their teachers, step through time to touch a tree trunk turned to stone or to stand beneath the skeleton of a dinosaur.

Visitors of all ages express the same awe as they walk through a museum that has evolved into an interactive textbook, educating and exciting everyone about the history of the Earth.

The public is invited to experience this learning firsthand during the annual free Geology Museum open house on Sunday, May 2, from noon-4 p.m. Visitors can take tours, play geology bingo, learn why gems sparkle and even have their own rocks identified.

“You can read about fossils, or you can come to the museum and see them – that will always trump reading,” says Richard Slaughter, a paleontologist and director of the museum. For his course on the history of life, the director uses the museum as the only “textbook,” assigning regular visits to the museum to supplement class lectures.

Although the museum today is recognized as one of the top two educational campus destinations, it has continuously struggled to achieve that reputation – along with funding, space and an expanding collection.

Nearly as old as the university itself, the museum basically started out as a cabinet of minerals housed in Science Hall. A fire, the Great Depression and a heist that lifted 96 crates of specimens from the museum continually decimated the collection.

“When I became curator of the museum in 1969, the museum was basically defunct,” says Klaus Westphal, who served as museum director until this year.

Looking for opportunities to improve the museum, yet operating on a minimal budget and with no support staff, Westphal introduced some of the programs that truly put the museum on the campus map. Besides overseeing the museum’s move to Weeks Hall in 1980, Westphal initiated a course now offered every semester, the regular tour program and the annual student paleontology expeditions to Montana and other western states.

“The Geology Museum program continued to grow, and some students got very interested in vertebrate paleontology,” says Westphal. “They volunteered as tour guides and worked in the fossil preparation lab. Many switched their majors to geology.”

Because no campus department includes a vertebrate paleontology program – studying the fossil remains of animals such as mammals, reptiles, birds, fish and dinosaurs – many students returned to the museum to conduct research or work with the paleontologists on staff. To meet the increasing interest in this field, the Geology Museum staff developed online courses that currently enroll more than 400 students each semester.

“If you’re interested in fossils or dinosaurs, the museum is the place to go,” says Joseph Skulan, a paleontologist at the museum and an online course instructor. “The museum has value to the rather sizeable number of undergraduates who want to study paleontology.”

Under the leadership of its new director, the Geology Museum will accommodate even more people, from children to adults. Slaughter plans to introduce, for example, members’ nights for museum supporters, guided geology tours at Devil’s Lake State Park and perhaps even a television show for kids about fossils.

Next month will be the museum’s busiest, with around 2,600 children coming through as part of the school tour program. All of them, like the first-graders now sitting in circles before different displays, will pass around crystals and touch the tooth once belonging to a dinosaur the size of a school bus.

And, like the undergraduate students thirsting to learn more about this field, some of these children may return to the museum, or, at the very least, remember the day they saw the fossil remains of a giant shark.

“A lot of people in Madison have dear feelings toward the museum,” says Skulan. “Many of them went through the museum, either as visitors or students, and tell us that it was part of their formative years. This is something we’ll continue to supply.”

The Geology Museum, located in Weeks Hall at 1215 W. Dayton St., is open regularly to the public on Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., and on Saturday, from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Admission is free.

For more information about the museum or about the May 2 open house, call (608) 262-1412 or e-mail rich@geology.wisc.edu.