For the past three months I have done little else other than plan and prepare for the Annual Museum of Biological Diversity Open House, coming up Saturday, April 23, 10AM-4PM. As one of the lead organizers, my mind is full of the big items and the small details that need to be taken care of so all the many parts of the event can work well. No wonder when it comes to my turn again to write a post for the #OSUBioMuseum blog, I can only think of one thing: Open House.
Earlier in the year I wrote about the changes we are implementing in order to handle the expected number of visitors.
If all of you come to visit this Saturday — which we hope you do, and the trend (see graph below) continues, we will probably have another record-breaking number of visitors.
Graph showing visitor attendance at the Annual Museum Open House
Besides changing the date (from February to April), we are moving most of the hands-on activities outside of the Museum and under a big tent. With more space available, we added a number of new activities, and expanded a few others. Some of the all-time favorites, like the Arthropod Zoo, were given more space. The full list of activities and the collections that will be open to the public, may be seen below.
Guide to the collections, displays areas and activities of the 2016 Museum Open House.
If you are following us on social media, we have been instagramming, tweeting and posting updates on Facebook about the upcoming event. Several of us, faculty, staff and students in the Museum, are posting on one or more of these outlets so the best way to follow is to search for the hashtag #MBDOH2016.
Now, with only a few days to go and with most of the big items taken care of, I’m having a little time to contemplate the overwhelming size of the event ahead of us. Wow!
Back in 2005 we never imagined that our Open House would become this big and successful. We only thought we would share the work we do and the amazing animals and plants we study.
But after eleven annual open houses, and knowing that so many of our neighbors here in central Ohio have the same passion and enthusiasm for the natural world as we do, we can only be thankful and try to hold the best event we can.
All the collections are working on colorful theme-related displays and we will also have new hands-on activities. We hope you can join us as we explore the role of colors in Nature during our 2016 Museum Open House.
For more information about the event please visit our Visitor Information page. Note that we have much more visitor parking space available this year.
Before I forget, I especially want to acknowledge the work and support of my colleague Steve Smith. In 2014, when I first worked on the organization of a museum Open House, Steve had just started as the Museum’s part-time office manager. We both had to learn a great deal, and banged our heads around more than a few times. And here we are again! Thanks, Steve!
About the Author: Dr. Luciana Musetti is an Entomologist and the Curator of the Triplehorn Insect Collection.