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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studios in SoHo. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming on-demand, I'm grateful you're here. Happy Cinco de Mayo and happy 15th birthday to my son. He's a cool kid. On today's show, we'll hear about the upcoming Studio Ghibli Fest. We'll learn about Isaac Murphy, one of America's first Black jockeys. If you're looking for things to do this spring and summer that aren't spendy, we'll be talking about free events with WNYC's culture and arts editor, Steve Smith. That is the plan, so let's get this started with New York City's newest museum wing.

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Alison Stewart: Today, the American Museum of Natural History opened up to the public, a new building that's been in the works for more than a decade, and it's impressive. It's called the Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation. It blends the new with the old. It looks like Barcelona's Gaudi meets the Flintstones, and I say that with love. The 230,000-square-foot structure has six floors and pays homage to natural rock formations with organic curves of sprayed concrete and big rounded windows to illuminate the space filled with tech and touchscreens and art, including an 8,000-pound honeycomb sculpture.

You can walk through the new butterfly vivarium and investigate the insectarium, where you can meet Hercules beetle. He's about the, or she, size of an eyeglass case. The exhibits let you see firsthand life's dramatic transformations in how creatures grow and evolve in community with one another. Speaking of community, the Gilder Center also features a few new spaces to engage the public in the museum's work. There's a research library and data science classrooms. That's new, but what about the old?

Well, around the edges of the new building are displays of more than 3,000 specimens from the museum's collection displayed along placards that detail the science and the process of studying natural history like 72 turtle shells lined up in a grid. What can shells reveal about box turtles? A wall of expedition photographs formatted for a 19th-century lantern projection asks, how do you go on an expedition without leaving home? On racks of adorned masonry. How can bricks from ancient Maya cities connect us to the people who live there?

Ah, all really interesting questions to ponder. Hey, listeners, if you're one of the early birds who got to check out the American Museum of Natural History's new Gilder Center, give us a call and tell us about it. What was your favorite part? Maybe it was your kid's favorite part. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC, you can tweet us or DM us on Instagram. If you check out our Instagram, I put up a couple of images from my visit this morning. The Gilder Center is now open to the general public. Joining me now from the American Museum of Natural History are Preeti Gupta, director of Youth Learning and Research. Preeti, nice to meet you.

Preeti Gupta: Hello.

Alison Stewart: Dr. Jessica Ware, associate curator of Invertebrate Zoology. She's an entomologist who helped design the insectarium. Jessica, nice to meet you.

Dr. Jessica Ware: Nice to see you.

Alison Stewart: Preeti, you've been with the museum for more than a decade. What sorts of conversations were had in the early stages about hopes and dreams for this space?

Preeti Gupta: Oh, wow, that's a great question. To be honest, the conversations were many. The idea was we have what we call the people that just want to spend their days at the museum every Sunday or that type of thing. What can the museum offer that type of person? Then we have the people where it's their annual visit or family comes to town and they bring them to the museum. What should the museum be for them?

Of course, we're a tourist attraction, both domestic and international, national. Of course, there's so much already at the museum. What more should we add so that it becomes something that they don't just come back for once but they come back for every visit? It's not just about coming, spending money, and checking a box on your visit to America or whatever, right?

It really is about creating memories and creating a way for them to start certain conversations that they can take back to their homes, to their neighborhoods, to their countries, to their cities, and then decide, "You know what? I think I'm going to go visit my local museum, my local garden, my local park." Our goal was to ignite for people a love of science, nature, community, and also appreciation for all the people that do this work, not just at the museum but across the world, so really an appreciation for the work of science.

Alison Stewart: Jessica, when you were first engaged in these conversations, what were some of the questions you had? What were some of the ideas you thought might be incorporated in this new project or you'd like to be considered to be incorporated?

Dr. Jessica Ware: Honestly, I remember saying, "Can we have one whole wing that's just dragonflies?" That was [unintelligible 00:05:30].

[laughter]

Dr. Jessica Ware: I think the early conversations that we had, particularly in entomology, was about how we could capture wonder about insects. There's a lot of insects. There's over a million and a half described species, so how could we show the breadth of variation that was out there? How do we handle sensitive topics like the fact that some insects, a very small number, I might add, but some insects vector disease? We wanted to be sensitive to the fact that there are some insects that we don't necessarily want to have persist.

Then there are other insects, the majority of them, that we really wanted to engage people about so that we could work to save and conserve them. Those debates about what proportion we put of pest insects versus beneficial insects, the types of insects that were featured, everyone has a favorite. Mine are dragonflies. I wanted a lot of freshwater aquatics because I feel like those are overlooked and underserved. There's lots of bee content. There's lots of beetle content. I think, in the end, the compromises that we made really paint the broad picture of what insects do in the environment and how we can better interact with them.

Alison Stewart: Jessica, could you describe the layout of the exhibit, the insectarium?

Dr. Jessica Ware: Sure, so the Solomon Family Insectarium, you can enter it from a couple of different sides. It doesn't really matter which way you enter. You can enter from the 8,000-pound beehive. From that side, you'll also have a touchscreen that tells you more information about vector-borne illness that is vectored by a majority of mosquitoes, but we talk about a few different insects. Then you walk your way past a giant, humongous leafcutter ant colony.

That allows you to, I think, understand social insects and understand how industrious and hardworking they are. You move along in the hall learning about mouth parts, learning about camouflage, learning about crypsis, learning about, as I mentioned, the breadth of different types of insects. There's these meet-the-insects kiosks that allow you to get a snapshot of what the different types of stick insects look like or the different type of beetles. In the central part of the hall, in the gallery, there's information about New York City. Many of us might think that urban centers don't have a lot of insect biodiversity.

We couldn't be further wrong. The Insects of New York City exhibit is constantly going to be changing because as all of us go out and use iNaturalist, the records for New York City are constantly being updated, and so too will they be constantly changing in the insectarium. Then as we finish, as you go out the other side of the hall, or if you were to enter from that side, what you start with in that case would be evolution. You learn about the tree of life of insects and how different insect groups are related to each other. I think there's a lot of content for a variety of people, young and old.

Alison Stewart: Preeti, let me bring you into the conversation. I wanted to talk about the leaf ant display, which is elaborate. It really shows how they work together. You see the little ants carrying the leaves on their backs, and then there's the bigger ants moving them along up and across a transom, and then they deposit it into these fungus pods. Now, for you as an educator, how could this be used as a learning tool for kids?

Preeti Gupta: The best thing about an exhibit like this is that we're bringing the outside world into the inside. In a way, that's safe. In a way, that is somewhat choreographed by the designers. The best thing for us educators to do is to let our audiences, whether it's school kids, families, teachers, little ones, high schoolers, anybody, just make observations, right? The art of making observations has been beaten out of us.

This exhibit allows us as educators to enforce that skill in all of the audiences. Naturally, people are going to see things, and then what we do is we ask them these very open-ended questions to get them to notice things. For example, I wouldn't say, "Notice those ants carrying the leaves." Instead, it would be, "Tell me what you're noticing. I see you're staring at this part of the exhibit very intently."

Let people reveal what they're noticing and then use that and scaffold on that ultimately to have them do some sense-making at the exhibit. Create some explanations ultimately, not as the very first thing, but let them look at the natural phenomena, and then create some ideas and do it. Oh, and this is the most important thing because what our museum does is it's a social environment.

You can visit on your own. Even if you're all by yourself visiting, there's other people around you to have that conversation about what you're noticing because learning is social. What we want to do is get people talking to each other, making observations, and ultimately doing a little bit of sense-making, and then using that sense-making as they explore the rest of the exhibit in the museum.

Alison Stewart: Before we move on to the butterflies, Jessica, I need to know more about the Hercules beetle, the one that I said is about the size of an eyeglass case.

Dr. Jessica Ware: I sat and watched it munching on a giant piece of apple. It was a big apple and I thought, "Boy, that's going to take a while." That little fella ate it in about 10 minutes. Both in the juvenile stage. They're called grubs when they're juveniles. Both in the juvenile stage and the adult stage. They're about the size of your hand. You can carry them in about one hand.

Alison Stewart: You can carry them.

Dr. Jessica Ware: They're pretty hefty, their weight. I would carry them. I would carry them as a pet. They actually are weird as pets. Many people keep them as pets in other parts of the world.

Alison Stewart: Really?

Dr. Jessica Ware: You too could have a Hercules beetle as a pet if you chose.

Alison Stewart: Very interesting. I'm learning something every minute. We are talking about the Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation. My guests are Preeti Gupta, director of Youth Learning and Research, and Dr. Jessica Ware, associate curator of Inveterate-- Inveter-- say it for me, please.

Dr. Jessica Ware: Invertebrate Zoology.

Alison Stewart: Invertebrate Zoology. Thank you very much. She's an entomologist. Let's talk about butterflies. The butterfly habitat. Jessica, you go in and there's two doors to make sure we don't have anybody who escapes. It's very, very warm. It felt very, very tropical inside. What can we learn from the world by looking at butterflies?

Dr. Jessica Ware: Well, there are a lot of different kinds of butterflies. The vivarium allows us to see about 80 species at any moment in time. They do a lot of different types of behaviors. They don't all fly the same. They have slightly different wing vein patterns and colors and shapes and sizes. I think often when we think of butterflies, we often think of them as being monarchs or at least kind of butterfly, but there's many. More than 180,000 species of butterflies that are out there.

When we go into a place like the Davis Family Butterfly Vivarium, it really allows us to just scratch the surface that, "Wow, there's incredible diversity in insects." We see them doing jobs in the vivarium. We see them working as pollinators. We see them feeding. They have a proboscis so they can drink nectar. It's a constant reminder, I hope, to all of the visitors that they're doing this big ecosystem service. Without them, in the absence of pollinators, many of the food and crops that we actually rely on to survive as humans would not be able to be pollinated.

Many butterflies and moths have really intricate relationships with the plants that are their host plants. It's hard to grasp that. You can read it in a textbook, but to actually see that certain butterflies, "Oh, look." As Preeti would say, people making observations, this butterfly always goes to this particular plant. I'm not seeing this butterfly in this other plant. It is reinforcing these messages that we may have learned about in school that there are this multiple species interaction.

Alison Stewart: iNaturalist came up earlier in the conversation previously. It's an app that helps citizens crowdsource some biological questions about our environment and happens in real time. It's an interesting way to gather data by engaging the community. How does that engagement and that eye towards data-gathering factor into what you and your colleagues have planned for these data classrooms?

Preeti Gupta: Yes, so that's the big word, "data," right? Our scientists, the work they're doing is all data-driven. Many people who are not in science don't realize that we are at a place in society where the newest tools and technologies allow us to get a lot of big data fast. When we get that kind of data, it can do a lot for us. You have to have ways of understanding and thinking about data to actually not just let that data sit around, right?

This new space that we have-- now, we've been working with data for many years. We have lots from little kids all the way to teachers. Our audience is working with data, learning what it means to collect data. You do sensing data, all of these things. What the room allows us to do is make connections to all these new exhibits as well as the existing exhibits. When you go in there, right now, we're going to start using it primarily with our middle and high school youth and then expand out to our early and elementary learners and then teachers and students and families.

In each case, these audiences are going to either be immersed with data using the largest databases that actually are informing the building of our Invisible Worlds experience. That same data set we now have in this learning with data lab and that young people, well, any audiences, are actually going to be able to do investigations more from a phenomena perspective rather than watching the show.

They're actually going to be able to engage with that data or 3D printers. We have those in there. That's not necessarily a new technology, but we are able to take the technology of 3D printing and use it to really get access to a lot of our collections that are either too delicate or too small or too big or too rare, and then by creating those 3D prints, do the kinds of analysis work in ways that either emulate what our scientists do, or actually not just emulate, but do what our scientists do but at a smaller scale.

Really, this is a space for computational thinking. It's about being immersed with data so that everyone can understand that if you're young, you can think about careers related to data. If you are family, you could understand the role that-- For example, AI, it's all over, but what is this thing, AI? Getting an understanding of how AI works in our everyday life. Also, you talked about iNaturalist. That's something anybody can do. How does it actually work? How does citizen science work and where are the limitations and biases of data as well? There's a lot that is going to happen in there. I would encourage everyone to keep an eye on what's out there that we're going to be offering.

Alison Stewart: Before we go to break, we did have a question about butterflies for you, Jessica. Someone wants to plant milkweed to encourage monarch butterflies. Should he plant any specific type? Does it matter?

Dr. Jessica Ware: Yes, it does really matter. There's a specific genus and species that monarchs tend to be on. Sometimes there's a sister species in the same genus that they can be down, but they don't do as well on. I would encourage you to visit a few different pollinator sites that can give you more information about the specific species of milkweed that you would want for your particular area because it does make a difference. I would say any milkweed you plant will be beneficial. Because of this intimate species interaction, knowing the right species is always ideal.

Alison Stewart: This person called in from Florida. Does that make a difference?

Dr. Jessica Ware: Yes, so that would be a slightly different one than the one that we have here in New York, New Jersey.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about the opening of the Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at the American Museum of Natural History. If you're one of the lucky early birds who got to check out the Museum of Natural History's new Gilder Center, give us a call. Tell us about it. What was your favorite part, or if you're planning on going and checking it out, tell us why. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC is our number, or tweet or DM us @AllOfItWNYC. We'll be back with more after a quick break.

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Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. We're talking about the Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, newly opened at the American Museum of Natural History. My guests are Preeti Gupta, director of Youth Learning and Research, and Dr. Jessica Ware, associate curator of Invertebrate Zoology. She's an entomologist.

All right, we're going to get away from the science for a minute and talk about the building itself. New York Magazine's architecture critic said, "It is frankly attention-getting. It is clearly so different from the rest of the museum and invigorating in its rejection of high gloss and generic bigness." A person liked it, but I can't do my best to describe it. When you think about it, Jessica, what stands out to you about it as a structure and then as a museum, a place to present science?

Dr. Jessica Ware: Well, I would say as someone who has spent a lot of time collecting in caves and canyons, I do love that this kind of feels like you're going into a cave and it's full of insects. It does have a very natural feel. What surprised me when I actually got to experience the Gilder Center is how bright it is inside and how much light there is. It really is like a way of capturing light. Depending on where you are in the Gilder Center, the light streams through these gaps in this canyon-like structure that is inside.

The acoustics are really beautiful. When I have experienced being in the Gilder Center, I really felt like I was taken to a natural-- I didn't feel like I was in New York City. I didn't really feel like I was in a building. I felt like I was in a natural setting. I may have been in a canyon or a cave somewhere. I think that is a perfect chance to marry together architecture and science.

If we're preparing people to look at our beautiful collection's core, which as you mentioned has all different types of collections from around the world, all different types of animals, as well as other artifacts, this is a perfect setting for it. Beautiful light streaming in, gorgeous sounds you can hear in a good way. [laughs] Someone talking from one side of the building, one side of the hall to the other, it just sounds like you're in a really magical place. It's a perfect place, I think, for learning.

Alison Stewart: Preeti, what do you like about the building as a structure, as a piece of architecture, and then also as a platform for education?

Preeti Gupta: Well, I'll just build on what Jessica said so beautifully. Before I had said learning is social, well, learning is emotional as well. When you enter, there is awe. There is positiveness. There is this surprise because from the outside, even though it's so beautiful from the outside, you don't actually get a sense of its grandeur until you step inside. The light, as Jessica mentioned, these are all things.

Then when you come through, what you're going to see are these big steps that you can sit on. It's inviting you in to just come sit for a minute or five minutes. Again, it's a museum in New York City. New York City, fast, full of traffic, tension. If you're with your family, someone's always needing a snack, right? There's so much going on. You come in and you can just take a breath. You can sit. You can admire.

That right there needs to happen, what we call "third space." It's not home. It's not school. It's not work, except for me and Jessica and a thousand other people. Even for that, it's a third space. You need that space to be yourself. Once you get that happening, then you're ready. You're ready to start observing, having conversations. It launches your brain and your heart to work together.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Marie from Manhattan. Hi, Marie. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Marie: Hi. I wanted to say that my father was a lawyer by profession, but he had an insatiable curiosity about everything. He would take my sister and me and my cousins and anybody who lived in our neighborhood. He was like the Pied Piper bringing a group of kids to the Museum of Natural History every Saturday. He did that for years. We always went to a different place. We always found fascinating things. To this day at age 80, it is still one of my favorite places in the world to go to. We went to the planetarium every time there was a new show and we sat there in awe. It was just the most spectacular experience. I have such wonderful memories because of that.

Alison Stewart: Marie, thank you so much. That was really touching and the idea of we're talking about the building and all the science of it. To your point, Preeti, there's a certain sort of emotional attachment to these trips that we make with family, with friends when we're expanding our world at various museums.

Preeti Gupta: Absolutely.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Peter. Peter has a question for you, Jessica. Hi, Peter. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Peter: Hi, Jessica. What's the most dangerous invasive insect that we have to be on the lookout for in this metro New York area besides, of course, the spotted lanternfly?

Alison Stewart: Thank you for calling in. Yes, the spotted lanternfly is in the exhibit. It is one of the pinned insects in that you-- [chuckles] It's so interesting. My eyes went right to it. I was like, "I know that one at least."

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: To ask Peter's question, the most dangerous invasive insect to be on the lookout for in our area.

Dr. Jessica Ware: Well, I would say, Peter, there's still quite a few old invasive species. Maybe they're not as popular in the news anymore. Sorry, there's a truck going by, a firetruck going by. I am in New York. The emerald ash borer, it's a small metallic green beetle. It still causes immense damage to trees because then the larvae kind of crawl under the bark and it can cause trees to die.

If you see small metallic green beetles that are the emerald ash borer, they have a semi-circle shape to their body. That's something that you should still report. Even though it may not be in the newspaper every day, that's an invasive species to watch for. The brown marmorated stink bug causes immense economic damage. Those look like little brown stink bugs, but their antennae and their legs have alternating white-brown stripes on them.

That causes terrible damage for a tree fruit and for grapes and things like that. It's not in the news as much anymore since it's been around since around 2005, but it's still an invasive species to watch. I would say that we should, as New Yorkers, ever be vigilant. We report. We get a lot of invasive species coming through our door. As the fad ends if people paying attention to them, they're still there often in cases. We still need to watch for them.

Alison Stewart: In terms of being safe, something I learned today that was interesting and you can explain why that once moths-- there's going to be a section for moths in the vivarium, but they're not allowed to lay eggs in the country. Could you explain why?

Dr. Jessica Ware: We have a lot of live insects in the insectarium and then the vivarium, but the USDA, the Department of Agriculture, doesn't allow certain things to be bred because there is a potential risk that they, having forbid, escaped, right? They could become established. We are constantly paying attention to the climate, to the environment, to the host plant's availability that certain moss might be able to feed on, and then determining whether or not it's safe or not to keep them, not just in the insectarium, but in any research facility, there's this constant question of, "What can we breathe safely for research purposes versus what has too high of a risk?"

Alison Stewart: Preeti, we're talking about some of the new things we see, but we do get a taste of the museum's collection. I say "a taste" because there are millions of things in the collection that are not only for viewing but also for research, for people who are writing books, for PhD candidates, and they line the sides of this new structure. Can you tell us what you hope visitors take away from those pieces from the collection?

Preeti Gupta: Yes, there are many things to take away. It is really dependent on the visitors themselves and the kind of prior experiences and interests and motivations that draw them to that exhibit. Some of the takeaways are just that objects have meaning. Natural objects tell you a lot about, of course, the natural world. Manmade objects are not just like another cup or another vase or another this or that, right?

They really are telling you so much. To the eye that's untrained, it may just be like, "Oh, pretty looking pottery," but that's where the conversation comes in because, here, we want to start talking about like, "What are the patterns you're seeing in the pottery? What are these things made of and why are they made of those things? Who collected these things and why and when?"

You'll see that in the exhibit, it's not just a collection of objects that we have and continue to build, but also there are stories of our scientists that are collectors. That's really important to pay attention to. There's also a story of data in there, right? Those are all pieces of data, right? You mentioned those turtles. That's all data, but there's also astronomy data there, so that's important.

Then right behind it is what we call the actual collections that our scientists can access. You might be lucky where you're passing by. You might see one of our staff going in and getting something. It gives you a sense of scale and immenseness and variety. That's just some of the takeaways. There are so many more that I could imagine once we get to know how the exhibit's going to be used.

Dr. Jessica Ware: Wouldn't you say--

Alison Stewart: Oh, please go, go. Absolutely.

Dr. Jessica Ware: Sorry, Preeti. I was just going to say, wouldn't you say it is kind of interesting that the objects are not haphazardly chosen? It's almost like a mystery. You could try and look at them yourselves and think, "Why were these specific ones chosen?" Because often you can do some deductive reasoning as you go through the exhibit, wouldn't you say?

Preeti Gupta: Absolutely. They're telling you a lot about patterns like what we call cross-cutting concepts in education. What form and function and about scale. Our family visitors will be able to take one thing out of it, but schools and teachers and formal education learners, you should just come, hang out there every day because there's enough to cover what's in your curriculum.

Alison Stewart: Jessica, when you think about-- there's so much to see and there's so much to touch. There's a 12-minute immersive experience video based on data. What is happening that we don't see when you're in this space?

Dr. Jessica Ware: Well, I think what we don't see is that behind the scenes, there's all of the folks that are working on caring for the live animals. I would just want to give a shout-out to them. Because every time we see the leafcutter ants carrying those individual leaves, someone actually is replacing those plants every day multiple times a day.

When that Hercules beetle is eating that tiny piece of apple, there's someone there that's constantly carrying-- It's a 24-hour-day, seven-day-a-week job, really to make sure that those live insects are cared for. That's something that's happening behind the scenes that you may not-- There is a beautiful back of house. I know that the people who are working on the live insects are excited to be able to spread out and really show all the amazing insects that are out there that we can have on display. It's a lot of work.

Alison Stewart: Preeti, is there something that's going on in the museum that we don't see that you would like people to think about?

Dr. Jessica Ware: I would say that-- Oh.

Preeti Gupta: Oh, that's okay.

Alison Stewart: Jessica, you can go. You can wrap it up. Either one.

Preeti Gupta: I'll just, again, build on Jessica because what's so cool about what you're saying, Jessica, is that these are jobs, right? That's a big part of what we do behind the scenes is we're really a center for education in the sense that there are thousands of young people for whom we are trying to do the exposure work of all the different kinds of jobs in STEM and also what we call STEM-adjacent jobs.

You may not say you want to be a scientist, but you may want to be one of those people that does animal care, or you may want to be a science communicator, or you may want to be a teacher. Also, talking about the Invisible Worlds experience, the number of different kinds of people that it took to put that together, and the kind of talent. Talk about learning with data, those are data specialists, visualization experts, scientists, artists, right?

We're in a very exciting time in the world, in New York City because it's no longer just biology or just physics or just art. It's really an interdisciplinary, create-your-own-job type of situation. There's jobs that I couldn't name that are going to be ready to be hired for in three, four, or five years. My job and the team that I work with, our job is all about equipping young people to have confidence and identity and understand that they are very capable of working with data, very capable of bringing their multiple passions. They should bring all of that to the table.

For those that are historically not represented in the sciences, we work extra hard from an equity and access perspective to make sure that they are centered in all of our work, and that they are supported and scaffolded, and that they know that the systemic structural barriers that are possibly getting in their way is not their fault. We work very hard to address the whole ecosystem so that we can-- It's funny because, Jessica, you talk about ecosystem from an ant's perspective and an insect's perspective, but I work on it from a human perspective, right? That's all happening behind the scenes.

Alison Stewart: The Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at the American Museum of Natural History is open now for New Yorkers. I believe it is pay what you wish. Hope folks get a chance to get out and see this fabulous new building. My guests have been Preeti Gupta and Dr. Jessica Ware. Thank you so much for your time today.

Dr. Jessica Ware: Thank you.

Preeti Gupta: It was great. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Happy opening.

 

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