The Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, PA has a small
exhibit of mollusks.

When I visited Atlanta several years ago, I visited the Fernbank Museum of
Natural History. There was a small exhibit of mollusks on display.


> Does anyone have a comprehensive list of museums and parks with shell
> exhibits?
>
> I know of Bailey-Matthews on Sanibel, for sure. And there is the Brevard
> Museum of Natural History with its excellent Johnson Cordy Hall of
> Mollusks.
>
> But what about other parts of the country? I've been teaching after school
> science classes and I don't even know where to send my students. Yale's
> Peabody here in New Haven used to have an excellent shell exhibit, back
> about FORTY FIVE YEARS AGO! So the kids have not seen very many shells.
>
> When they have been exposed to nature, it's more likely to have been on
> the
> Discovery Channel than IRL.
>
> In New Haven, at least, we have beaches. Okay, maybe not Florida beaches.
> The water is cold and murky (I was going to say polluted, but no more than
> Florida, really.) and dark. But there are beaches and tides and life and
> wrack lines. Still, the kids don't even think to poke through them. And I
> reckon they need a jumpstart and an exhibit can do that. I hand out take
> home materials and it would be great to have a list of shell-exhibit
> destinations for the parents to bear in mind for summer vacation. I would
> also like to include it on the Astronaut Shell Club Blog that we are
> putting together astronauttrailshellclub.blogspot.co m
>
> In the meantime, we need to make do with what we got. If I was in Florida,
> I could take them to a warm beach with white sand. I could take them to
> Sanibel or to the Brevard Museum (and tomorrow, at Brevard, I wouldn't
> even
> have to pay because it's the open house).
>
> Anyway, I'm working on making new converts to our hobby. My kids can tell
> a
> bivalve from a gastropod and my personal supply of spare shells has been
> doled out. I dump out a BIG piles of shells and tell the kiddies, if you
> can ID* it, you can take it home. Great motivator!
>
> Man oh man, they love those sunrise tellins!
>
> * and by ID, I mean even come up with a reasonable wild guess...
>


Regards,
Charlie
.................................................
Charlie Sturm

Treasurer
American Malacological Society

Research Associate - Section of Mollusks
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Associate Professor - Family Medicine
Fellow-American Academy of Family Practice
Fellow-Academy of Wilderness Medicine

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