A description of Indian Creek Nature Center (located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa) from its Facebook pages:

Iowa's first private, non-profit nature center, encompassing 210 acres of woodland, wetlands and prairie with approximately 4 miles of trails, open to the public during daylight hours year 'round.[1]

A description of the Amazing Space building:

Amazing Space is Indian Creek Nature Center’s new building and campus that opened in September 2016. It provides endless opportunities for exploration and discovery, and serves as your gateway to the beautiful natural world outside its doors.

Amazing Space is not only beautiful, it’s one of the most environmentally sustainable buildings in the country. We are set to achieve the Living Building Challenge – a rigorous certification that is years beyond LEED in providing a measure of true sustainability.[2]

This URL will take one to a virtual tour of the Amazing Space: http://indiancreeknaturecenter.org/our-facilities/ 

The kind of work I did at Indian Creek was, as I indicated above, leading or co-leading three prairie hikes during the grand opening of the new Amazing Space building. While each of my hikes was only ½ hour to 45 minutes in length, I was present through most of the day at the location helping with a range of tasks including help with set up (moving tables, etc.). I remained on site from before 9 am until after my afternoon session (ending around 4). I was supposed to have co-lead an advanced, intermediate and beginning nature hike. I ended up sort of “taking over” half the group in each of the first two hikes respectively (they were done in the order listed) and teaching each in a fairly high level of detail about prairie and specific prairie plants. The last group was more truly co-lead with another volunteer and more geared toward the children that made up that mixed-age group. All groups, in fact, were composed of adults and children but the first two had fewer kids—and these were of older ages—than the last one. In the last group I had the good fortune of being joined by a young guy as co-leader who did a good job of talking about animal signs with the children while I handled the plant portion of the hike (not by design but things just fell out that way).  The goal of the project was simply to instruct and engage the groups in information about prairie—an ecosystem that makes up a substantial portion of the grounds around the Amazing Space and that serve as a key component in teaching people about Iowa’s ecology. I believe I was successful in meeting these goals and my co-leaders seem to have agreed (see evaluation form).

The activities I engaged my group in included simply looking—looking at colors of flowers, of course, but also stems, leaves and other plant parts—but also touching and smelling of plant parts as aids in plant identification. An example of this was the smelling of various native mints that have the characteristic mint scent and also a square stem that the hikers could feel with their fingers. Other examples included noting the star-like appearance of aster flowers and recognizing the word “aster” translates as star. The idea that big bluestem grass has a bluish tint to its stem (reddish in fall) and that its seed head looks like a turkey foot (giving the grass one of its other common names). 

I hadn’t been trained to do this particular event but have received a great deal of “training” as a leader (mostly observing others do the same and just learning through trial and error what things are effective) of invasive vegetation removal crews over the years in my role as a volunteer at Hickory Hill Park in Iowa City, IA (this work overlapped somewhat with my paid teaching duties at Kirkwood College where I taught a course in environmental sociology). In my capacity as a leader of these volunteer crews I have, by necessity as well as interest, had to teach certain fundamentals about Iowa prairie. Last summer I also worked as a paid naturalist for Johnson County in which capacity I lead numerous groups of varying ages in prairie hikes. In that work I was aided by my colleagues in effective techniques for teaching about prairie, especially techniques for working with children.

I believe that the hike helped the Center by tying potential visitors more to its lands. I believe I piqued the interest of my participants enough that they will want to learn more about prairie and, perhaps, to return to Indian Creek to do so. While an outdoor venue has only limited connection to the readings we have had in class, the idea of a meaningful object is somewhat transferable to a degree. The plants (and animals and other features) of the prairie can be thought of in this way—as meaningful objects—objects that hike participants can form both an intellectual interest in and an emotional connection with. I believe I was able to help my participants form such a bond through use of multiple senses in identifying them learning interesting facts about them. When I did the volunteering I hadn’t yet read enough or had enough experience to apply to the work as I did it. Since then, however, I can see how certain concepts (especially that of the meaningful object) pertain.

The University of Iowa Museum of Natural History was “founded by order of the Iowa Legislature in 1858 and [is] the oldest university museum west of the Mississippi River.” It combines “exhibits, education resources, programming, collections, and research opportunities to support the University of Iowa and our community.”

Its mission is “to inspire in visitors of all ages understanding and a sense of wonder, discovery, respect, and responsibility for our natural and cultural worlds through exhibits, educational programs, and collections, as well as through linkages with UI research and activities.”[3]

In the work I did in the UI Museum of Natural History collections I helped move some bird “skins” from old locations in the attic of the MacBride Hall and from wooden drawers under displays in Bird Hall to new, metal drawers in a vault on the lower level of the building, a much better location from the standpoint of preservation of the specimens. (The skins are basically stuffed specimens of the skins, with feathers intact, that are stored in the Museum’s collection for study by researchers.) I also altered the database that contains an electronic record of where the birds are located to match their new location.

Each bird in the UIMNH collection has a tag attached to it with an accession number and other details about the bird indicated. Much of this information must be entered into the electronic database so that basic facts about it are stored safely (the tags can and do deteriorate over time). Tags sometimes need to be put in a plastic sleeve to prevent them from breaking down further. Most of the data about the specimens has already been entered into the database so my task was generally only one of altering the details about the bird skins’ location.

The goals of the project were to move the bird skins and mounts to a more accessible, central location and update records on each in order to make research on them easier to accomplish. I did “on the job” training for this project. I accompanied one of the interns who showed how to retrieve the specimens from a list so they could be put in order of their accession numbers. He took me to the two main locations where the specimens were being kept. On a subsequent day I was trained on how to record the new location of each moved specimen in the database. I spent two or more hours at each activity and have been engaged in at least two periods of database entry. 

I feel I am only beginning to learn about the area of collections in a museum’s mission. I had always thought of museums as being about the holdings on display never considering how collections that never see the light of day also play a vital role in the furtherance of scientific objectives. For example, I learned that bird coloration can change over time due to fluctuating pollution levels and that researchers can measure the amount of, say, coal ash in the feathers of bird skins collected during periods characterized by high usage of coal for heating. They can then determine how much of this pollutant pervaded the atmosphere at that time. Thus museum collections benefit not just the visitor to its formal displays but also the scientific community and, by extension, all of us who are the beneficiaries of the findings of science. At this time I can think of nothing I would do differently but I intend to continue to work in collections next term as an intern and learn ever more about the role they play in research. I hope to get involved in identification of specimens as well being very much interested in animals of all kinds and birds in particular.

[1]"Indian Creek Nature Center." Facebook. Indian Creek Nature Center, n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2016.[2]"Our Facilities - Indian Creek Nature Center." Indian Creek Nature Center. Indian Creek Nature Center, 2106. Web. 04 Dec. 2016.[3] "About Us." About Us. University of Iowa Museum of Natural History, 2015. Web. 04 Dec. 2016.