Carnegie Museum of Natural History

One of the Four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

climate change

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CUSP Exhibits on display at Pitt

mom and child using an educational kit
Participants engage in an activity at CUSP, coordinated locally by Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

by Laurie Giarratani

How will you use science, technology, and community to improve lives and shape the future?  Join the Climate and Urban Systems Partnership (CUSP), along with innovators from across the country, to test ideas with hands-on experiments and demonstrations in the exhibit hall of the White House Frontiers conference – open to the public from 10 a.m. – 11 a.m. on Thursday, October 13 at Alumni Hall at the University of Pittsburgh.

CUSP is a national project, funded by the National Science Foundation, coordinated locally by Carnegie Museum of Natural History, that aims at changing climate conversations in urban settings. More info about CUSP at http://www.cuspproject.org.

Climate and Urban Systems Partnership (CUSP)

Laurie Giarratani is the Director of Education at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

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A New Way to Study Climate Change

fossils from Invertebrate Paleontology fossils from Invertebrate Paleontology fossils from Invertebrate Paleontology

Students from Shady Side Academy Middle School studied our extensive fossil collection last week to learn about theories of climate, extinction, and evolution.

Albert Kollar, Section of Invertebrate Paleontology, used fossils from different periods of the Paleozoic era to show how trilobites changed and evolved over millions of years.

“Trilobites are popular with kids of any age and belong to a group of animals called arthropods
that include horseshoe crabs and insects,” said Mr. Kollar

The trilobites that the students touched and held come from the ancient rocks found today in the Czech Republic, France, Sweden, British Columbia, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, Utah, and Pennsylvania- the home of the 390 million year old state fossil of Pennsylvania.

Arriving at the Section of Invertebrate Paleontology lab, the students received a fossil coloring book to teach them about rocks and fossils in the Pittsburgh area. The class then split into smaller groups, each getting their own try at identifying rocks and fossils from Pennsylvania or making molds of different fossils from the collection with Plaster of Paris.