Museum offers behind-the-scenes tours

July 31, 2013

Photo by Theresa Bakker. Scientists from Idaho State University are making high-resolution 3-D scans of arctic mammals from the museum's collection.

Theresa Bakker
907-474-6941
7/31/13

The University of Alaska Museum of the North is offering behind-the-scenes tours to visitors through the end of August. Participants will get exclusive tours of the museum's labs and work spaces, where collection managers and curators take care of almost 1.5 million specimens and artifacts, and have the opportunity to ask researchers about their work.

For the next three weeks, scientists from Idaho State University will be at the museum taking high-resolution 3-D scans of specimens, particularly marine mammals. This is part of a large National Science Foundation-funded project to put every bone from every arctic bird, fish and mammal online in 3-D in a searchable, taxonomic system for vertebrate analysis. Tour participants will have chance to see how the museum's specimens are used by the broader scientific community.

Photo by Theresa Bakker. Items from the ethnology and history collection.

The tours are offered Monday through Friday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. The cost is $10. For more information or to reserve space on a tour, call 474-7505.

ON THE WEB: See the Virtual Zoology of the Arctic Project database here: http://vzap.iri.isu.edu/ViewPage.aspx?id=230

TB/7-31-13/018-14