Field Trip

I was in the US in June and July and one of the places I visited was Colorado. While there I visited the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It had a great interactive section for kids which I found entertaining too. But what really captured my attention, and the reason we went, was for the vast gem exhibit. The way the minerals were arranged in class eg: silicates, rather than the rock from which they occur eg: igneous, meant that I learnt something new from the onset. I don't have a real point of reference about that curatorial decision, but I have never encountered information about gemological minerals presented in such a fashion. And so I found it was well narrated but again,I haven't seen very many natural Science arrangements in other parts of the US or elsewhere.

What I found outdated was that some of the samples from my part of the world had not been afforded updated labels with regard to their provenance. Instead of labeling the samples Lepidolite, Descloizite and Dioptase as acquired from Namibia, they still said South West Africa. This is akin to calling Mozambique "Portuguese East Africa" or referring to Zimbabwe as "Rhodesia". This oversight disappointed me, especially because we know that at many junctures, geography intersects with politics.