Seeing Past Specimens (2019)

These exhibits were created by College of Idaho students in a First-Year Seminar course “Thinking Through Things” during the Fall 2019 Semester. 

 

Each student chose a specimen from the Orma J. Smith Museum of Natural History, researching the various ways in which the specimen has meaning—to humans through time and in various cultures, to commerce or society, to religious or spiritual thought, to literature or cuisine, to ecology or chemistry, to industry or aesthetics. Their research was interdisciplinary, thorough, and creative—and here you can view what they distilled to share with you. 

 

From robots to tea to mushrooms to our specimens, we practiced arts of noticing, learning to work with each other to uncover unexpected stories.