CIPRES Museum Exhibition on Phylogeny
M. Donoghue, PI, Yale University
Planning for the proposed phylogeny museum exhibition is well underway and on
schedule. The NSF funds allocated to CIPRES for this purpose will be expended
between July 1, 2006, and the end of the award period.
Planning for the exhibition was initiated with a CIPRES-sponsored outreach
workshop held at Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, 9-10 December, 2005.
This meeting was attended by the following 27 participants (including 13 women),
chosen to represent the relevant spectrum of specialties, from education to exhibit design
and phylogenetics: R. Beaman (Peabody), M. Braun (NMNH), J. Cracraft (AMNH), M.
Donoghue (Peabody), S. Donovan (U. Pittsburgh), K. Fisher (NESCent), L. Friedman,
(Peabody), J. Gauthier (Peabody), S. Hackett (Field Museum), D. Heiser (Peabody), J.
Holmes (AMNH), P. Korsmo-Kennon (Bell Museum, U. Minnesota), S. Lanyon (Bell
Museum), D. MacMahon (Florida Museum of Natural History), D. Maddison (U.
Arizona), D. Mindell (U. Michigan), B. Moore (Yale EEB), W. Owens (Field Museum),
C. Perrine (UC Berkeley), J. Pickering (Peabody), A. Prum (Coneflower Productions), R.
Prum (Peabody), K. Schulz (U. Arizona), J. Scotchmoor (UC Berkeley), C. Starr
(AMNH), W. Wheeler (AMNH), and T. Warnow (U. Texas). Among these participants
were eight PI’s of NSF-funded ATOL projects that expressed interest in including an
exhibit component in their outreach plan.
One and a half days of this two-day meeting were devoted to brainstorming the
content and design of an ideal phylogeny museum exhibition. This generated a starting
list of idea to be highlighted and specific thoughts on implementation. The results of
these deliberations, including many of the individual Powerpoint presentations are
archived at: <http://www.phylodiversity.net/bmoore/Temporary/Cipres.zip>.
Following on this very successful meeting, a Peabody Phylogeny Exhibition
Steering Committee was formed, and has met regularly through the Spring of 2006. This
team is led by PI Donoghue, Director of the Peabody Museum; other members are
Peabody Curators Jacques Gauthier and Richard Prum, Jane Pickering (Assistant Director
of Public Programs), Laura Friedman (Exhibits Designer), David Heiser
(Events/Education Director), and Reed Beaman (Museum Informatics). These
deliberations have resulted in a more refined vision of the focal audience and key goals of
the exhibition, as well as concrete strategies for implementation.
The exhibition will be focused on a family audience and therefore will include
elements appropriate to a variety of age groups. Along with museum specimen, the
exhibit will feature a variety of digital displays and computer interactives. Its content
will center on the following questions/concepts: (1) What is the Tree of Life (ToL)? (2)
What does “phylogenetic relationship” mean? (3) How are we able to infer phylogenetic
relationships (i.e., using what logic)? (4) How big is the ToL? (5) How hard is it
(computationally, and in terms of the data necessary) to infer how species are related to
one another? (6) How much do we know now about the ToL? (7) Are we finding any
major surprises about the ToL? And, (8) Of what real use is knowledge of the ToL?
The exhibition will be installed in the Peabody Museum in ca. 600 square feet of
prime space near the entrance of the Museum, across from the gift shop. This placement
will provide visitors with an introduction to material that will inform their experience of
galleries throughout the Peabody, which will be redesigned and/or re-signed when
possible to take advantage of the phylogenetic orientation. Structurally, we envision a
large interactive, sculptural, centerpiece, surrounded by a series of smaller stations
highlighting the key concepts outlined above. These stations will be designed as modules
that could be transported or readily reconstructed at other sites (see below).
Most of the design and construction of the exhibition will be carried out by the
excellent exhibits staff of the Peabody Museum, who have recently produced a variety of
highly acclaimed exhibitions, including “Machu Picchu, Unveiling the Mystery of the
Incas,” “Fossil Fragments: The Riddle of Human Origins,” and “The Hall of Minerals,
Earth, and Space.” However, we plan to subcontract the development of some of the
interactive displays and software design. This work will also involve a CIPRES-funded
Yale graduate student, Stephen Smith, who will work with the team on content
development and implementation of the computer interactives. In addition, we have
begun work with documentary film producer, Ann Prum (Coneflower Productions), who
will produce footage for the exhibit; in addition, we are exploring the possibility
producing a 30-minute public television film on the Tree of Life.
The time line for the production of the exhibition is as follows:
Into this schedule we have recently interpolated a front-end evaluation program, to be
carried out over the next four months. For this purpose we have enlisted the services of
Museum Evaluators Ellen Giusti and Monique Scott, and have worked closely with them
in developing of a set of questions to orient in depth interviews with museum visitors to
the Peabody and the AMNH, and focal groups involving children and parents taking part
in Peabody summer activities. Of special interest in the Peabody context is the inclusion
of our African-American and Hispanic communities. These surveys, which leverage the
prior research of Rebecca Shapley (UC Berkeley) and Sam Donovan (U. Pittsburgh), are
designed to yield base-line data on the level of public understanding of the Tree of Life.
This information on background intuitions/assumptions will be critical not only in
designing an effective exhibit, but also in relation to other CIPRES outreach components
and museum projects underway elsewhere.
Detailed plans for the exhibition, specific content elements, and software will be
distributed as broadly as possible to the other museums and public education programs
associated with the CIPRES project, and more broadly to natural history museums and
related public institutions. As much as possible, the exhibition will be designed and built
as a set of modules that can be moved or variously recreated elsewhere at a variety of
scales.