Education

December 13, 2023 by Erin Southerland

A Three Rivers Waterkeeper Biocube

As frontline defenders for water protection in Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania, staff of Three Rivers Waterkeeper patrol and monitor for pollution in our waterways by using high quality monitoring and sampling technologies to collect water samples. Our work contributes to the enormous efforts by watershed organizations to monitor water quality data in our region.

A river redhorse might be a finned visitor to a temporarily submerged Three Rivers Waterkeeper biocube. The presence of this species, pictured here in a display tank setup by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, is evidence of a healthy river system.

Wildlife observations occur so regularly in our work that the thought experiment about where best to place and monitor a biocube creates a dilemma. Over the modern history of our region, mass industrialization polluted our waterways, and our rivers became devoid of aquatic life. Fortunately, with the implementation of the 1972 Clean Water Act and subsequent clean water laws at the local, state, and federal levels, community organizations have been able to hold polluters accountable. As a result, we have seen wildlife come back to our rivers – including our national bird, the Bald Eagle. On or along the Allegheny River alone, the US Forest Service has documented rich species diversity, including over 50 mammals, 200 birds, 25 amphibians, 20 reptiles, 80 fishes, and 25 freshwater mussels.

Visible in this picture of the freshwater mussel known as the plain pocketbook (Lampsilis cardium) is the fleshy lure the shelled creature relies upon to attract fish close enough to be showered with a cloud of tiny parasitic larvae. The larvae attach to fish gills for several weeks before dropping off as fully formed miniature mussels.

We settled on a type of location rather than a specific one, the deltas formed by local tributary streams as the enter one of the three rivers referenced in our organization’s name. During the cycle of a full year on one of these patches of water-shaped land, a biocube might be fully submerged during some weeks, and shaded by riparian vegetation during other times. A list of likely plants and animals found temporarily within the cube’s bounds might very well include:

This giant mayfly (Hexagenia limbate) resting on a section of Allegheny River shoreline will have a brief breeding life of just a few days. Much of its earlier life as an aquatic nymph was spent burrowing in river bottom mud.

A Mallard hen and ducklings here represent the range of birds, including Great Blue Herons, Bald Eagles, Spotted Sandpipers, and of course other waterfowl species, who might investigate the space within a well-placed stream delta biocube during their routine feeding forays.

Late boneset (Eupatorium serotinum) is a native Pennsylvania plant that loves growing close to bodies of water in wet soil. The plant, pictured here on a stream delta along the Ohio River near Conway, blooms late in the summer and into the fall, providing pollen and nectar at a time when there are few options for species that need it.

The temporary submergence of stream deltas by rising river waters does not hinder Water Willow (Justicia americanus). The early-summer blooming plant is well adapted to fluctuating water levels, and the network of its root system helps to minimize riverbank erosion.

Homeschool Classes

Explore the natural world in Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s homeschool classes. Students ages 5-18 from the local homeschool community can attend sessions designed to complement homeschool science curriculums and make homeschooling more convenient, interactive, and engaging for your family.

Upcoming Homeschool Classes

2024-25 Homeschool Classes listed below meet at the museum on the following Mondays.

Fall 2024 Dates

October 7, 2024
October 14, 2024
October 21, 2024
October 28, 2024
November 4, 2024

Winter 2025 Dates

January 27, 2025
February 3, 2025
February 10, 2025
February 17, 2025
February 24, 2025

Spring 2025 Dates

March 31, 2025
April 7, 2025
April 14, 2025
April 21, 2025
April 28, 2025

Is your class sold out? Sign up for the waitlist.

Registration is coming soon.

Refund Policy

For multi-session classes, full refund less $10 handling fee for withdrawals made at least one week before program begins. Withdrawals made less than one week before the program starts, but before the second class session, are subject to a fee of $10 plus the pro-rated cost of a single class. No refunds after the second class has met.

Inclement Weather Policy

For children’s programs scheduled to occur December through March, the following inclement weather policy will be used: Should hazardous conditions result in cancellation of classes, announcements will be made on television stations KDKA, WTAE, WPXI, and FOX. Decisions are based on the needs of all students and instructors, some of whom drive considerable distances to Oakland. Makeup days may be scheduled for missed classes. During any inclement weather, please use your own discretion to attend for your own safety and that of your student.

December 1, 2023 by Erin Southerland

Birds in “Twelve Days of Christmas”: a Museum Search

by Patrick McShea

The Twelve Days of Christmas

When a traditional song about Christmas gifts reaches young ears, the centuries-old lyrics naturally prompt questions. If you’ve been on the receiving end of inquiries such as “What’s a partridge?”, a museum visit can provide identity information for the abundance of birds mentioned in the “Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Although the birds cited below aren’t precise matches for European species of the song, locating these feathered references can renew your own appreciation for what might be an overly familiar tune.

Inspiration and informational reference for the re-interpretation of several exhibits comes from a 2018 American Ornithological Society blog post by Bob Montgomerie, an evolutionary biologist at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. Dr. Montgomerie’s post is titled “Three French Hens.”

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

*Ruffed Grouse taxidermy mount in Discovery Basecamp.*

In Pennsylvania, the Ruffed Grouse has reigned as state bird since 1931. The species’ collective value to Pennsylvania residents includes the gamebird’s historic importance as a food source and its current role as the focus of much upland sport hunting. The bird referenced in the song might well have been the Red-legged Partridge, a European species known to science as Alectoris rufa, however, the Ruffed Grouse is a decent substitute because the bird, which is known to perch in trees occasionally, is routinely called “partridge” in Maine and other portions of the northeast.

Two Turtle Doves

*Passenger Pigeon taxidermy mount in Bird Hall*

The European Turtle Dove, Streptopelia turtur, is a member of the bird family of doves and pigeons known as Columbidae. Generally, the smaller species in the family are called doves, and the larger species ae called pigeons. The Passenger Pigeon is the most notable family member on display at the museum.

Passenger Pigeons were once so abundant in eastern North America that flocks darkened the skies for hours when the birds migrated to access seasonal feeding areas and nesting sites.

Sustainable use of the birds by humans did not continue into the 19^th Century. By mid-century, Passenger Pigeons became an unregulated commodity in the rapidly expanding American economy, with the country’s growing railroad network and parallel telegraph system providing unprecedented means for sharing word of flock locations, transporting hunters to those sites, and shipping harvested birds to distant markets.

Three French Hens

The song reference is to a specific breed of domestic chicken. There are no domestic chickens on display in the museum, but the species is usually well-represented in the food selections offered within the building’s dining areas. Some scientists have speculated that our current reliance on domestic chickens as a global source of protein for human consumption might someday leave deposits of chicken bones as an identifying mark of the Anthropocene, a proposed name for the current geologic age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

Four Calling Birds

Northern Raven taxidermy mount in a diorama of its habitat

If we use the cited author’s research finding, (The original ‘colly bird’ was the Eurasian Blackbird (Turdus merula) as ‘colly’ meant ‘black’ as in ‘coaly,’ and is why border collies bear that name.) the Northern Ravens in an Art of the Diorama display can fill this slot. Another candidate is the American Crow, a species frequently observed passing over the museum building at dusk during winter evenings, heading to local roosts in scattered flocks that number in the thousands. Ornithologists explain the birds’ collective behavior as taking advantage of a “heat island effect,” a base temperature in a city that is five or more degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside.

Five Golden Rings

Close-up of a bird band on bird taxidermy mount

“Five golden rings” might also have a bird connection. Dr. Montgomerie’s post mentions both Gold Finches and Ring-necked Pheasants as possible references, but the museum’s long history of bird banding at Powdermill Nature Reserve, the location of Powdermill Avian Research Center (PARC), allows a different approach. Bird banding is a research practice that involves capturing wild birds, marking them with numbered leg bands, and releasing them unharmed. In some parts of the world this centuries’ old effort to verify bird movements through recovered birds is called “ringing.” It is admittedly a stretch between gold rings and aluminum bands, but for a close look at the latter, check the tabletops in Discovery Basecamp for an encased taxidermy mount of a Gray Catbird bearing one of the lightweight markers on its right leg.

Six Geese A-laying

goose taxidermy mounts in a museum diorama

Although the lyric refers to a domestic variety, a scene focused on an enormous gathering of a wild species in The Art of the Diorama demonstrates the eventual outcome of “geese a-laying” – more geese. Here Blue Geese, a variety of Snow Geese with dark plumage, are shown gathering near James Bay in preparation for a continent-crossing migration. The dark-headed geese in the foreground are young of the year, the most recent product of “Snow Geese a-laying.”

Seven Swans A-swimming

A lone Tundra Swan watches over Discovery Basecamp from a high perch. Thousands of these birds fly, rather than swim, across Pennsylvania spring and fall during seasonal migrations between Arctic nesting grounds and wintering territory along the Chesapeake Bay. Their fall passage over western Pennsylvania, announced by flock calls some people describe as “like the baying of distant hounds,” generally occurs between mid-November and early December.

Patrick McShea is an Educator at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

A Tree Pittsburgh Biocube

by Patrick McShea

On a late October afternoon, Joe Stavish, Director of Education for Tree Pittsburgh, uses a biocube in one of the organization’s greenhouses to show off the golden fall foliage of northern spicebush saplings. If the cube could accompany one of these native shrubs when it’s planted in a local park as part of forest understory restoration, the open-sided green frame might document a surprising variety of wildlife.

During the early weeks of spring, northern spicebush again adds bright color to forest landscapes when its leafless branches bear tiny gold flowers whose nectar and pollen provides critical nourishment for a host of native bees. Close attention to blossom visitors within the biocube could lead to the documentation of dozens of insect species at this stage.

Early spring observations might also detect what appears to be a narrow, two-inch-long dead leaf attached to one of the shrub’s twigs. This is the over-wintering chrysalis of the spicebush swallowtail, a butterfly whose caterpillars are known to favor the spicebush leaves as a food source. After the plant is fully leafed, observation of spicebush foliage within the biocube might produce a sighting of the caterpillar’s distinctive fifth instar or larval stage.

The broad head of the caterpillar at this stage sports two false eye spots, markings that might provide some predator protection by contributing to an overall visual impression of a small alert snake.

In late summer and early fall, when the ripening of the plant’s fruit is signaled by a green to red color change, the biocube would likely have some avian visitors. The ripened fruits are an important seasonal food source for Wood Thrush and other migrating songbirds. In actions that would likely occur outside the bounds of the biocube, these birds contribute to overall health of northern spicebush in our forests by spreading the plants’ seeds in their droppings.

Patrick McShea is an Educator at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Turtle-Centered Learning

by Patrick McShea

This fall, for elementary students in the Meadville area, visits to the school library became opportunities to learn more about turtles. Beth Heuchert, Elementary Librarian for three buildings in northwestern Pennsylvania’s Crawford Central School District, was the force behind the collective concentration on the shelled reptiles. She selected The Book of Turtles, a new work by Sy Montgomery and Matt Patterson (Clarion Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2023), to be the focal point for September library sessions. Then, to establish three-dimensional, and in some cases touchable, extensions for the book’s 39 pages of colorful illustrations, she borrowed a wide range of turtle-related materials from the museum’s Learning Collection.

*In the museum’s Turtles of Pennsylvania display on the Kamin Overlook, an eastern box turtle (4) and wood turtle (5) flank a copy of* The Book of Turtles.

In explaining her joint use of children’s literature and museum materials, Beth outlined multiple activity strands for engaging a wide age range of young learners.

With the Kindergarten and grade 1, I read aloud a story book about a turtle, Truman, by Jean Reidy, followed by The Book of Turtles–which I read over a couple of classes. Students looked at and got to touch the sea turtle shell and model, along with the turtle taxidermy mounts in the cases. Students shared what they noticed about the turtles and what facts they remembered. Then they drew their own turtles (adding patterns) or colored in a picture of an Eastern box or sea turtle.

With grades 2 through 6, I tried out something new involving centers in the library. We read The Book of Turtles as a group, and then the students went to their tables where they worked while taking turns to examine copies of the book. Two of the centers were ‘research’ tables. These spaces featured materials from the museum along with other books on turtles.

The complementary resources enabled students to write down or draw what they observed, answer questions, and generate lots more questions about turtles for future research. Other centers were set up to encourage Independent Reading, and a Read and Create Center where students made turtles out of LEGOS, created origami turtles, turtle-themed tangrams, or turtle images with standard drawing materials.

*As part of the school loan, a sturdy plastic model of a green turtle represented ocean-dwelling turtle species.*

Connections between freshwater turtle shells from the museum and a full-page turtle skeleton illustration in the featured book were particularly important. In combination, the touchable specimens and the detailed image provided reinforcing lines of evidence for interpreting the spine and ribs as inseparable bone components of a turtle’s shell.

A cultural link between the museum materials and The Book of Turtles also deserves mention. The work’s concluding illustration, a full-color depiction of turtle bearing a vegetated island atop its shell, is captioned with a broad historical reference: Ancient stories from around the world tell us how people believed the Earth was carried on the back of a turtle. For some students, the statement provided a perfect segway into the exploration of an older turtle-focused book, Thirteen Moons on Turtle’s Back, by Joseph Bruchac and Jonathan London, with illustrations by Thomas Locker.

*The T*hirteen Moons on Turtle’s Back toolbox.

By dedicating the now 31-year-old work “To the children of Turtle Island,” the authors honor the shelled reptile’s foundational role in Native American legend. The poetic text, in conjunction with a concluding page titled, “A note about this book,” draws reader attention to another aspect of turtle anatomy, the thirteen large scales that create the outer surface of a turtle’s carapace or upper shell. As the book note explains, Many Native American people look at Turtle’s back as a sort of calendar, with its pattern of thirteen large scales standing for the thirteen moons in each year.

A colorfully illustrated toolbox bearing turtle shells and twenty copies of the book was part of the loan from the museum. The books’ use, under the direction of a skilled elementary school librarian, pushed turtle activities into interdisciplinary territory where students learned something about how changing seasons and the passage of time are marked in Native America cultures.

Learn more about this classroom-enriching program.

Patrick McShea is an educator at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Museum Connections to a College Lab

by Patrick McShea

During a recent Vertebrate Diversity Lab at Duquesne University, Dr. Brady Porter’s students closely examined preserved wildlife material on five rows of tables. Weeks earlier, Brady arranged to borrow a variety of vertebrate specimens from Carnegie Museum of Natural History; lizards, snakes, and turtles preserved whole in jars of alcohol, a set of mammal skulls presenting strikingly different dental formulas, and birds preserved in the flat and ridged form known as study skins.

As the manager of the museum’s Educator Loan Collection, I provided 15 bird study skins for the lab. When I expressed curiosity about how the preserved birds would be received by a college audience, Brady invited me to observe the encounter.

students looking at bird study skins on a lab table

What I observed was an exceptional blend of instruction and inquiry. As the students circulated, singly or in pairs, among the specimen-rich workstations, Brady also moved about the lab, answering individual questions, and providing pointed suggestions in a voice clearly audible to every member of the class. While I watched two students gently check a pied-billed grebe study skin for the presence or absence of the stiff facial feathers known as bristles, for example, I listened to Brady’s advice to a student at an adjoining table who had just picked-up an opossum jaw. “It might be easier to do the dental formula on one side and then double it. And look carefully at every place a tooth could be because teeth can fall out.”

grebe and woodcock study skins on a table — *Study skins – American Woodcock (top) and Pied-billed Grebe (bottom)*

No caveats were necessary for the bird study skins, where worksheet questions directed students to look for and interpret the functional importance of such features as the sharp talons and distinctive hooked beaks of raptors, and the tiny, but fully functional feet of hummingbirds. Some questions served to remind the students about how whole suites of physical features were historically used to create the detailed chart of relationships that is the vertebrate classification system. Here the pied-billed grebe, a species so adapted to aquatic life that mated pairs construct floating nests, provided a tactile reference point for a question directed several levels back in the classification chart. “What is the name of the bird Clade that includes most of the waterbirds?”

During an hour-long observation of the lab, it was clear how much the professor-directed learning experience was dependent upon the authentic materials. Had photographs or digital images been used as substitutes, they would not have conveyed all the information embodied in the preserved birds. In less structured situations, however, the usefulness of study skins as teaching aids fades.

At the museum, visitors encounter 21 study skins displayed amidst nearly 300 life-like taxidermy mounts in Bird Hall.

Museum label that explains study skins. Text says "You will see two types of bird specimens in this hallway. Taxidermy mounts: life-like display, less than one percent of the collection is prepared this way. Study skin: preserved flat on its back for easy storage and scientific study." There are illustrations of both study skins and a taxidermy mount.

On the Grand Staircase side of the long narrow exhibition, an informational panel introduces the two types of bird specimens, summarizes their difference, and notes how ratio of preservation forms is completely reversed behind-the-scenes.

In explaining the usefulness of bird study skins to elementary and middle school audiences, I have long relied upon an explanation of theoretic researchers visiting the CMNH Section of Birds to gather data for a study about wing length variation in a species with a wide geographic range. “They’d have a difficult time working with taxidermy mounts.” I’d explain. “One mount might have been prepared with the wings fully open, another with them partially open, and a third with folded wings. With the standardized preparation method and form of study skins, those researchers would get accurate comparable measurements.”

My visit to the Duquesne University biology lab has added a more student-focused detail to the explanation: “Lots of the physical characteristics used for classification can be observed by examining bird study skins, and in a future class you might have an opportunity to be a close observer.”

Patrick McShea is an Educator at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Education

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Carnegie Museum of Natural History Blog Citation Information

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Upcoming Homeschool Classes

Fall 2024 Dates

Winter 2025 Dates

Spring 2025 Dates

Is your class sold out? Sign up for the waitlist.

Registration is coming soon.

Refund Policy

Inclement Weather Policy

by Patrick McShea

The Twelve Days of Christmas

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

Two Turtle Doves

Three French Hens

Four Calling Birds

Five Golden Rings

Six Geese A-laying

Seven Swans A-swimming

Related Content

Carnegie Museum of Natural History Blog Citation Information

Share this post!

by Patrick McShea

Related Content

Carnegie Museum of Natural History Blog Citation Information

Share this post!

by Patrick McShea

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Carnegie Museum of Natural History Blog Citation Information

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by Patrick McShea

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Carnegie Museum of Natural History Blog Citation Information

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