Day 8: Presenting... part 2!

Today, I was able to present! I am happy I was able to get some practical work done today, and that the research I've been doing has paid off. To sum it up, the presentations went very well, and I aim to do more of them throughout the rest of the individual study. Unfortunately, I didn't present the paleo touch cart, but rather I had presented more with the malacology one. 

I started by working with the "hammer oyster," "left handed whelk" and "chambered nautilus." Again, it is very much encouraged for docents to only have up to three specimens at once on display; this is for the very simple reason that they are easier to keep an eye on. I wanted to start with one specimen for all three of the classes, something that I did not do the last time I presented. Another thing I made sure I did was to choose items which were smoother and less fragile. Last time, I picked some specimens which were beautiful but had very fine features. Today I was nervous to put them out again in case things got too lively, so I changed those for smoother, less delicate specimens (which were very nice too). 

In my opinion, this set-up worked really well. There wasn't much to memorise other than some basic facts on each of the mollusks I chose, and the presentation flowed smoothly as I got from one specimen to another. Also, today, while there were a lot more guests than yesterday, it was a "calmer" day. This made presenting a lot more straightforward. 

All in all, I was very happy to have gotten to present once again today and that all the research I've been doing has paid off. Other than being nervous to present, nothing went awry so that's good. I'll try to go for a paleo hall touch cart in these last couple days. 

Same as last time, I couldn't take a picture of me presenting, but I did take a picture of the cart and objects I started out with...


In the middle, there is the left-handed whelk, on the left the chambered nautilus, and on the right the hammer oyster (which fittingly looks like a hammer).  The left-handed whelk is a gastropod, the chambered nautilus is a cephalopod, and the hammer oyster is a bi-valve. So, as you can see, I tried to use one specimen of each class whenever I had three out on display. 

After that, once the crowd of people started dwindling, and I had deemed that I had stayed a good amount of time, I returned the cart to its appropriate placement, and went to grab the Permian cart from the paleontology exhibit hall. There was less than an hour left before I had to leave, and I still had a couple more things I needed to touch up on for this cart, so I didn't feel confident to present this one yet. So, I took it to a spare room and continued with some general research. 

For tomorrow, I plan to try to present the touch cart from the paleo Permian hall, since I've been working on that for the last couple days. If I won't feel confident then, I'll continue presenting at the malacology hall. 

I look forward to tomorrow!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 10: The Last Day

Image
Today I arrived a bit early so I was able to take a brief look at the touch cart again before going right into presenting.  After I felt pretty confident, I went to get ready in front of the malacology exhibit. Luckily, there were a lot of visitors, including numerous tours for school field trips, so there was no problem in presenting today.  I am happy to say that this time I was able to get some images of me presenting, and not just pictures of the cart. Ms. Leap helped me in doing this: she stood in front of me, so she was able to get pictures of me and the backs of the visitors watching.  When there were groups of younger children, having also the teachers present meant that there was a more in-depth explanation for the specimens I was showing. I tried my best to make each presentation as interactive and coherent as possible.  I decided to put in the left-handed whelk , the Texas state shell, instead of the tiger cowrie . I think that was a good call since it seemed that it was a s
Read more

Day 7: Independent Work

Image
Today, I got to work on my end product throughout most of the time at the museum, which was a nice change from the usual activeness during more crowded days. Also, as Ms. Leap had to leave early today, I had a chance to work a little more on my own, which also went smoothly.  To sum it up again, my end product for this independent study will be an overview of the malacology touch-cart, including some information on the specimens, and some examples of how a docent could structure a presentation. I've seen some of the other touch carts around the museum, most of them from the paleo hall, and they all have a flexible outline someone can use to practice with before presenting. Since the malacology one does not, I think it would be beneficial both to me and future volunteers.  One of the first things I set to doing was taking note of the specimens this cart had. I plan to give some basic information on what they are, and divide them according to class. Out of the eight classes of mollus
Read more

Day 6: The Permian Cart

Image
Returning from the weekend, today was pretty calm in comparison to some of last week's days. I did not feel ready to present with the cart I had briefly seen at the end of Friday, so I decided to focus on getting more familiar with that today.  I signed out the Permian touch cart in the paleo exhibit and took it to the same spare room that I spent the majority of last week. This past weekend I revised the research papers Ms. Leap gave me for this specific cart and although it was pretty clear and detailed, I still wanted to see if I could apply what I had learned to the actual casts and models this cart offered. So, I set to looking through the objects it contained, and had a more practical approach to the research.  Below are two of my favourite pieces that I worked with today: Dimetrodon Coracoid Cast & Mold The first box contained a model of a mold and cast. So, obviously these are not fossils and rather replicas. A docent might use these during a presentation to demonstrate
Read more