Wagner

Going into the Wagner Free Institute of Science, I really didn't think much of it. It looks like a run down building, in a neighborhood that's not that well-known for museums. But, when you walked into the building and saw how it was built, you could tell that it was going to have a pretty sweet collection inside. The building had that Victorian style inside and it made you think that the things and people who built the museum were important. We found out that Wagner came from a wealthy family, but unlike the people we talked about from the 1400-1700's in Europe, he wanted to share his collection and knowledge of the sciences with normal people. You know the museum believes in evolution, because they base their lineup of animals, fossils, minerals, and rocks off of Darwinism. I also think that the Wagner hits the six primary functions we went over in class, collection, preservation, exhibition, education, administration, and public engagement. They have a great collection of animals, minerals, rocks, and fossils. They have preserved animals that I have never seen before and make them look like there about to job out at you. Their exhibition I thought was done nicely, big to small for the evolution of mankind and minerals. The education part was kind of bleak for me, but I still saw animals and other things I never knew or thought of and it gained my interest a little. For the administration, I thought the person who gave us the intro did a good job of explaining what it was and how it become what it is. And the public engagement was awesome for me. I could walk up to anything and look at it from a few inches away and thought that was really cool. The one thing that did piss me off was when, the fossils and a few animals that I looked at were in Latin and didn't know what the hell they were. But, when we got back to class and the topic was brought up it made sense. He wanted people to look at his collection, but at the same time learn from it also, by not just looking at it, but learning about what they were and where they came from during his lectures. I didn't think much of it from the outside, but the Wagner is definitely a very cool place and has a lot of history behind it. It was nice to know that he didn't want to just show off his collection like other rich people during his time, but actually god for bid have people learn something while they are there. That made the museum a lot more enjoyable for me.