Hear the Sounds of Nature in New England Forests Exhibition at Harvard Museum of Natural History’s Zofnass Family Gallery. Where can you get to by T during the dreary winter, where you can hear the calls of meadowlarks, the croak of a frog, or the slap of a beaver’s tale on a pond? Plan a visit to the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge where you can listen to dozens of natural sounds newly added to the New England Forests exhibition in the Zofnass Family Gallery. With motion detectors and different sound tracks concealed around the gallery, shut your eyes, and you’ll imagine you’re in the wilds. The sounds in New England Forests were made possible by a gift from the Emily Zofnass Fund at the Boston Foundation.
The multi-media exhibition, which first opened in 2011, explores the natural history and ecology of our regional forests, their responses to human activity, and their environmental significance.
For families, starting in February, the Museum offers Look Listen Touch, a guide to exploring the Museum’s forests exhibition with young children. Learn how to help your child experience nature in a multi-sensory way. Sit on the bench beneath the wolf; shut your eyes and listen. Do you hear the sounds of a woodpecker tapping, a frog croaking? How many different colors can you see in the feathers of one bird? Find the tadpoles in the forest pond. Do animal and insect babies look like their parents? Look Listen Touch is free with regular museum admission.
New England Forests engages visitors with the astounding diversity and network of complex relationships within forest communities. Museum visitors can explore the ecology of New England’s old growth communities; examine lichen cities clinging to a rock, or learn about the mysterious subsurface partnerships between trees and forest mushrooms, and the circle of life within and around a forest pond, from tiny aquatic insects to a giant moose. The exhibition encourages visitors to contemplate the challenges and choices we face in planning our forests’ future.
About the Harvard Museum of Natural History
With a mission to enhance public understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the human place in it, the Harvard Museum of Natural History draws on the University’s collections and research to present a historic and interdisciplinary exploration of science and nature. More than 200,000 visitors annually make it the University’s most-visited museum.
One of the four Harvard Museums of Science and Culture, the Harvard Museum of Natural History is located on the University campus at 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, a seven-minute walk from the Harvard Square T station. The museum is open daily 9 am to 5 pm, and admission is $12/adults; $10 seniors/students and $8 youth age 3-18. For more information, please see the website, at www.hmnh.harvard.edu or call 617.495.3045.
Media Contact:
Blue Magruder
Director of Communications
Harvard Museum of Natural History
617-496-0049
Released: February 22, 2013