[Music]
Hi I'm Miss Penny from KidVision and I'm
here today
at the Museum of Discovery and Science
in Fort Lauderdale
to speak with Mr. Joseph Cox the museum
director.
Miss Penny it is so exciting to have you
here at the Museum of Discovery and
Science thank you for being here.
We'd like to find out about you and your
job and we'd also love to look around
the
museum. Really excited to take you on a
tour
show you everything that we have at the
museum and
tell you what it's like to be a museum
director and how I got here.
How did you get here? I was always the
little boy
who loved museums, who loved science
always asking all those questions why is
the sky blue?
Why is grass green? And so my parents
were really good to me and took me to
museums
all the time and when I was in sixth
grade
we actually went on a week-long field
trip to museums
all across London. Wow. And so I fell in
love with museums
saw dodo birds for the first time and
saw fossils and dinosaurs and decided
that's what I wanted to do.
So when I went to university I studied
environmental science
and that included things like geology
and biology and chemistry
and all of those just came together and
set me on a path to being a museum
director. What exactly
does a museum director do? You know I
think one of the things that's so
exciting about being a museum director
is no two days are ever the same
so one day you might be meeting with
someone and talking about a new exhibit
that you're developing.
Another day you might be spending time
with summer camp children
and seeing what their summer camp is
like. Another time you might be meeting
with
funding partners who helped create some
of these amazing spaces
that we have here at the museum so every
day is a little bit different it's
really exciting.
I love this room and I'd love to take a
tour of your whole museum.
Could we do that? Of course there's so
much to see let's go explore!
Ok!
[Music]
So Miss Penny here we are deep
underwater in the Ecoscapes exhibit
here at the museum and what we're
looking at is the Florida coral
reef.
It is beautiful and I see you have a lot
of tanks with sharks and
all kinds of animals that you would find
in Florida.
We do we've got hundreds of animals who
live here
at the museum and a great team of staff
in our Life Sciences Department who look
after them.
These are mangroves which are one of my
favorites because they
are so important protecting us from
hurricanes.
And then of course everyone loves our
alligators.
So did you know Florida is the only
place
in the world where you can find
alligators
and crocodiles?
They're North American river otters and
they would be found in the wild here in
Florida
particularly in places like the
Everglades and rivers
but the ones that we have here were
rescues. And so what a wonderful place to
be rescued at right?
How old are these guys? So they vary in
age I think the oldest is six or seven.
They get along very well they do they do.
One, two.
Oh right with the lightning look at that
we did it.
So we're in the storm center here at the
museum.
We can learn all about weather and
especially
hurricanes because you know how
important it is to prepare for
hurricanes
each and every year. And it's nice that
children know what to expect.
So we are in prehistoric Florida
and this is an Imperial Mammoth.
Wow isn't this huge? Giant. It's bigger
than an
african elephant and speaking of big
teeth amazing
look at the saber-toothed cat. Yeah.
So huge big teeth. Big, big strong jaws.
Bigger than an African lion so
thousands of years ago walking around
Florida
would have been just like going on an
African safari.
[Music]
Well we have had a wonderful tour of the
museum there is so
much here and so much variety for
children to learn,
things for them to do, things for them to
explore.
And now we are here in our dinosaur
boneyard
surrounded by some pretty exciting
animals.
Yes, tell us about them please. So we have
three different
objects here from the museum's
collection and the collection
those are objects that we keep here at
the museum
so that we can share stories about
animals and history and plants that
lived in Florida
or around the world. Now right there in
front of you this is a really exciting
piece.
This is a brand new object in our
collection
and this is a baby dinosaur. A baby? Baby
dinosaur.
So this is a Tarbosaurus
which is a type of Tyrannosaurus
that was actually found in Mongolia
which is a country in
Asia. How did it get here? So
he was donated to the museum. A
paleontologist
found him in Mongolia and they excavated
the actual
skull. And it looks like he was a
carnivore because he had some big
sharp teeth here for a baby. He did and
those teeth got much bigger as he grew
up and could have been
almost the size of a banana when he was
a grownup.
Wow. He or she we don't know which. And
tell me about this guy. What is that?
This is a Colombian
Mammoth tooth. So this is one of the
molar teeth
from a mammoth and a mammoth was a type
of elephant.
What we look back in our history to see
well what were some of the biggest
animals in Florida
these are two examples of prehistoric
beasts
that were ice age mammals and so this
Columbia mammoth would have been walking
around
Florida at the same time as
this. And this do you think this is a
plant eater or a meat eater?
Oh he's a meat eater. He's got some major
teeth there.
Great teeth. Yes. So this is a Smilodon.
He is smiling or what some people may
know as a Saber-toothed cat.
So he would have roamed Florida
around the same time as our mammoth.
And I noticed that you put gloves on are
there special
materials or garments like gloves and
jackets that scientists particularly
wear?
Of course so when we're handling fossils
now this is
a real tooth a real fossil and so it's
very delicate so we have to make sure
that
we're looking after this and being very
careful.
So we wear gloves to protect the fossil.
Makes a lot of sense.
Now we're in the Makers part of the
museum and I would imagine this is where
we get to make things.
It is and we call this the hangar
because it looks like an
aircraft hangar. So we can make all kinds
of different things
here in the Makerspace. I want to ask
you I know that you are the museum
director
but I see a lot of people working here.
What type of jobs can people find here?
So there are all kinds of jobs in a
museum you can be
in just about any kind of career
that you enjoy depending on what you
love. So we have
staff who work in our Explore store so
that's the museum's gift shop.
And we have people who look after our
animals. They could work not just in a
science museum. There's lots of different
types of museums. There are. There's Art
museums, History museums
Natural History museums, Science museums
all kinds of different museums even
Aircraft museums.
Yes and I am very interested in paper
airplanes
so I know the first one isn't always the
best you have to keep trying and trying
again.
Well we've made some planes. I
made one that goes
very fast. Should we see?
Let's try it okay. Are you ready?
Okay.
Well thank you very much. we really
learned a lot today.
Miss Penny thank you so much for coming
here and playing with us today.
This was a lot of fun and happy to have
you here anytime.
I will come back, I promise! Perfect, thank
you. Thank you.
Hi boys and girls it's Miss Penny put on
your thinking caps
it's time to learn a new word.
Gloves. Gloves are hand coverings worn
for protection.
They have individual sections for each
finger
and the thumb.
What was that word? Gloves.
Good job. Museum director.
A museum director oversees everything
related to the museum.
The exhibits, the collections the
activities, and the people.
What was that word? Museum director.
Good job. Nature exhibit.
A nature exhibit is a display of a
collection of items that appear together
in nature.
What was that word?
Nature exhibit.
Good job. Science museum.
A science museum is devoted to science
exhibits
and activities.
What was that word?
Science museum.
[Music]
Good job. See you next time!