Apart from fascinating exhibitions displayed at Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History on a permanent and temporary basis, the facility also organises events aiming to educate the participants about the nature and history of the Santa Cruz region. Let’s look at the upcoming events held by the museum which are available for online attending since the present period of the pandemic.
Collections Close-Up: Cabinets of Curiosities
Have you ever heard about the history of the museums themselves? Needless to say, each of the existing museum has its own history, however, the roots of a museum as a facility are quite similar.
The museums we know today are originating from wunderkammers or, as they are also called, cabinets of curiosities. Cabinets of curiosities were the first exhibitions of private collections of various items including pieces of art, historical artefacts, fossils, animal or even human bones. Undeniably, such collections were not only curious, but also some of them were esoteric or downright eccentric.
During the Collections Close-Up: Cabinets of Curiosities webinar, you will be able to learn a lot about the history of museums and the history of Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History in particular, for instance, about its connection with the Victorian wunderkammers.
Note that Collections Close-Up: Cabinets of Curiosities is a part of the monthly Collections Close-Up blog. The host of the event is Kathleen Aston who are the collection manager at the museum. During the webinar, which will take place on October 1, 2020 at 5:30, you will be able to ask Kathleen any questions. The recordings of the previous webinars are also available to the public. For instance, the one held the last month was dedicated to the fossil collection as well as the collectors of fossils of Santa Cruz.
Naturalist Night: Redwood Forest
Another online meeting organised by the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History will take place on September 22, 2020 at 6 pm. Naturalist Night is a series presented by Marisa Gomez who is the manager of Public Programmes of the museum. The series is focused on the biodiversity of the Santa Cruz County region. Each meeting highlights a particular habitat with its flora and fauna located in Santa Cruz.
This time, Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History invites you to learn about Redwoods which are the tallest trees on the entire planet. These trees are so interesting not only because of their gigantic height, but also because of their enormous lifespan. Actually, some of the redwoods of Santa Cruz have a couple of thousands of years!
Undeniably, the redwoods of Santa Cruz are ancient trees, however, what is also peculiar about them is the fact there are not too many subspecies of that plant. Actually, redwoods are rather demanding when it comes to the climate, longitude as well as elevation. As a result, redwoods can be found in a rather limited number of regions. Fortunately, one of them is situated in Santa Cruz where they cover a few hundreds of miles of the coastal area.
Naturalist Night: Redwood Forest will present you the ecological story of the Santa Cruz redwoods focusing on their physical features as well as the way people tried to extend the diversity of the redwood species.
Rockin’ Pop-Up
Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History also has a series of monthly conversations which bring geologic topics into focus. The hosts of the event are the PhD candidates of geochronology at UC Santa Cruz, Gavin Piccione and Graham Edwards.
If you are interested in the formation of rocks or one of your hobbies is rock collection, you should definitely take part in these conversations. Not only do Gavin and Graham prepare fascinating topics for discussion, but they also are eager to help you with the identification of your own rocks.
Visit the official website of Santa Cruz Museum of natural History and check the list of the videos of the previous lectures, tutorials and events.