Past Events 2006
NATURE: CHRISTMAS IN YELLOWSTONE
November 12, 2006, at the Ross Media Arts Center
NET Television, the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, the UNL State Museum & Emerging Pictures presented an advance screening of the PBS program "NATURE: CHRISTMAS IN YELLOWSTONE".
C. G. Pritchard: A Retrospective
February 4, 2006 - October 29, 2006
Wildlife illustrations by C. G. Pritchard from his respected career as staff artist for the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission from 1948 to 1974. Included original artwork, illustrations from NEBRASKAland and Outdoor Nebraska magazines, Game & Park publications including brochures, technical publications, maps, and books, as well as interesting archival ephemera.
Astronomy Day 2006
Saturday, May 6, 2006
Mueller Planetarium hosted a fun day of astronomy for the whole family featuring hands-on activities, demonstrations, displays, and shows. Event topics included Mars Rover imaging, flight simulators, rocket launches, robotics, aviation, space flight, meteors, telescopes & how to use them, astrophotography, physics, and much more. Giveaways were courtesy of Astronomy Magazine, and a drawing was held to win a Meade digital telescope. Special slide presentation by Bryan R. White, “Nitescapes 3-D Aurora and Comets,” astrophotography images of comets and northern lights in full color polarized 3D, set to music by John Sierre.
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A reception in celebration of Ethnic Studies Week
Thursday, April 6, 2006
The University of Nebraska State Museum and The Institute of Ethnic Studies held a reception in celebration of Ethnic Studies Week.
Trailside Museum opened with a new mammoth exhibit and 'Fossil ID Days'
Thursday, April 13, 2006, Fort Robinson State Park, Crawford, Nebraska
The Trailside Museum of Natural History at Fort Robinson State Park near Crawford opened for the annual visitor season on Thursday, April 13, featuring a new exhibit called, “Clash of the Mammoths.”
The two ancient battling mammoths locked together in a death grip make their long-awaited return to their Ice Age stomping ground for the first time since the skeletal remains were discovered in the Little Badlands near Crawford 1962. The first visitors of the season have the opportunity to see the exhibit as a work in progress.
Paleontologists from the University of Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln will be working to install the fragile bones into the exhibit until the display is complete, in time for the museum's grand opening celebration Aug. 4. The entwined mammoths will be exhibited in a setting that replicates an actual dig site, simulating the excavation experience for museum visitors.
The skulls and tusks have been housed in the research facility of the NU State Museum in Lincoln since their discovery, anticipating an eventual return to western Nebraska. Renewed community interest and enthusiasm for the titans have fueled the support needed for State Museum scientists to revive plans to return the one-of-a-kind fossils to the region.
In addition to the new exhibit, further improvements at the Trailside Museum include a mural project which began in mid-April. The dramatic scene of the mammoths' death match will be painted as envisioned by Nebraska artist Mark Marcuson. Museum visitors will see the mural as an on-going project until it is completed over the course of about two weeks. Marcuson is known for his murals featured throughout the State Museum at Morrill Hall on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, including the notable mural in Elephant Hall, portraying Ice Age mammoths along the Platte River.
Trailside Museum 'Fossil ID Days'
Thursday, April 13, 2006, Fort Robinson State Park, Crawford, Nebraska
In celebration of the return of the mammoths, the Trailside Museum hosted two “Fossil Identification Days” on April 13 and 14. Visitors were invited to bring in their own fossil finds for examination by the State Museum's paleontologists. Those with especially interesting fossils were invited to donate it to the museum for an upcoming “Local Finds” fossil exhibit. Donors will be credited with their name in the exhibit. Donations become the property of the Trailside Museum.
Dinosaurs & Disasters: A Fun Family Day with Scientists
Saturday, February 18, 2006
The State Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln presented a day-long family event in cooperation with the UNL Department of Geosciences. It featured over 20 stations with hands-on activities and demonstrations, plus Planetarium shows on extreme weather.
Station interactive demonstrations and activities include; “Be an Earthquake!”, Collect and keep ash samples from Ashfall Fossil Beds rhinos, Identification of rocks and fossils (bring your own & have a scientist identify them), Giant camels stuck in the mud, “Pin the Dino on the Timeline” game, Mammals Disasters game, A fossil dig, “Meteorites and Meteor-wrongs”, Activities about the Antarctic Drilling - ANDRILL- project, Volcanoes and volcanic ash, Dinosaur lifestyles, the Dinosaur-bird connection, Tsunami and Earthquake demonstrations. New this year are meteorology stations about tornadoes, extreme weather phenomena, Hurricane Katrina: the wetlands-extreme damage connection.
Mueller Planetarium offered “Extreme Weather on the Plains” -fantastic images from storm chaser Mike Hollingshead, of tornados, storms and the Northern Lights. A collaboration between the University of Nebraska State Museum and UNL Dept of Geosciences.
Fossil Discovery Saturdays at Morrill Hall
Saturday, January 21 & 28, February 4 & 11, 2006
The public was invited to watch and ask questions while paleontologists from the University of Nebraska State Museum prepared fossils "live" at Morrill Hall. Scientists chiped away at blocks of rock to reveal the fossilized bones of ancient animals within. Fossils and scientists varied each week. Visitors were welcome to bring a fossil in for identification by the paleontologists.
January 21 - Vertebrate paleontology preparators Ellen Stepleton and Rob Skolnik revealed the bones of a Pliocene horse and camel.
January 28 - Highway salvage paleontologists Bruce Bailey and Shane Tucker prepared specimens collected in the Wildcat Hills south of Gering, including a 28 million-year-old beardog, a 20 million-year-old camel and an extremely rare deer skull.
February 4 - Ellen Stepleton and Rob Skolnik uncovered 18 million-year-old mammal bones.
February 11 - Mike Voorhies, curator for vertebrate paleontology, conducted hands-on activities.
