Friday, April 29, 2016

Happy Arbor Day!

Happy Arbor Day from the Bean Museum!
Since Bean Museum patrons are smart, I’m assuming you know trees can be really heavy, but did you know that some trees are actually THE heaviest organisms in the world? Pando, a colony of quaking aspen trees, is considered to be the heaviest living organism weighing in at about 6,600 tons. Each trunk in the colony shares identical genetics.
Quaking Aspens 
To learn more about trees, visit the Arbor Day Foundation.  
To learn more about Provo’s very own trees, visit BYU Tree Tours to find out how you can discover purple leaf plums, lily magnolias, and horsechesnuts right here on campus! After all…casually dropping scientific tree names can be pretty attractive on a date. #arborday #funfactfriday




Monday, April 18, 2016

Conservation Kids

Conservation Ken and Conservation Katy are the Conservation Kids, super heros that are based on Katy Knight, head of the education department at the Bean Life Science Museum and Ken Packer,  exhibits designer. These super heros can be found all over the museum as cartoon versions. They also can be seen in person on the first saturday of every month from 2-3pm. The purpose of the Conservation kids is to educate patrons about ways they can help protect the planet. Shanna Dungan, former educator, created some short videos about the Conservation Kids. These can be found on  youtube as well as with the links below.
The Conservation kids also appear at various events at the Bean Museum, they often ask patrons questions about how they can help protect the planet and award the guests with candy, tickets or bookmarks.
The hope is to do more with the Conservation Kids to reach out to guests as well as community members in helping all become better Stewards of the Planet, which is the overarching theme of the museum.

 Origin Story

Ep. 1 Reduce

Ep. 2 Reuse

Ep. 3 Recycle


Monday, April 11, 2016

"The Amazing Role of Social Behavior (even) in Fishes"

Every semester the bean Museum hosts what is called a "Tanner Lecture" downstairs in the auditorium of the museum. We have scientists who specialize in many different things from universities and organizations all over the world share with students and professors some of their research and findings. For this winter semester we had Dr. Ingo Schlupp present to us. He is the Presidential professor of Biology and the Associate Dean for research for arts and sciences at the University of Oaklahoma. His presentation was called "The Amazing Role of Social Behavior (even) in Fishes"

For Fish one of the first and most important descisions is who to mate with? males may not have to deal with that problem as much, they just want to mate but females need to make this important choice once a season and she needs to find a suitable and fit partner to pass on genes. So in Fish we see that there is generally female choice and male competition as hypothesized by Charles Darwin.

Kinship, or how related you are and how you treat your relatives. Fish like Dwarf Ciclids raise their offspring and their offspring are more successful, healthier than dwarf ciclids that grow up independantly. Fish can tell how related they are to other fish as well! They are more accepting or less territorial toward related fish.

The Social Environment- you hear the term of don't be a sheep, maybe you should hear don't be a fish. They will follow eachother and copy and imitate and lie as well. Fish have a dynamic social behavior.  They also can have leaders, in big groups like sardines, herring and anchovies do to avoid predators.  They can change their sex, fish can do lots of crazy cool things.

These are great opportunities to learn lots about what researchers are doing and how they do it. This world if full in interesting things to explore.


Monday, April 4, 2016

BYU Student Employee of the Year Award

Did you know that every year there is a competition for BYU student employees to get not only the "employee of the month award" but an award as the "best employee on campus for the whole year!?" No big deal right? No way! Nathan Hawks, one of our museum educators, was nominated by Katy Knight and turns out he won! Here is the clip from Y News:
"The Bean Museum's Katy Knight is the proud supervisor of this year's BYU Student Employee of the Year. Nathan Hawks is a lab assistant who presents live animal shows, gives tours and many other things. Katy said, "Nathan's talents in a variety of areas makes him one of the most unique, dynamic, and valuable employees I've ever had at the museum. His outgoing and approachable personality make him valuable as a docent, his knowledge about animals and science allow him to focus on teaching students and patrons rather than content or script."  

Way to go Nathan for being the best student Employee at BYU and always doing your best to make the Bean Museum a better place. He is in no way prideful or arrogant, he just does what he can and what is needed. If you haven't seen a show from him or participated in discovery drawing then you best be coming to do that.

Nathan's nomination will now move on to a state student employee competition. And if he rises to the top of that, he will be entered in a national competition. Nathan is great and we invite you to come and meet him and see for yourself!