Hall of Human Origins Amnh

The goal of this exhibit is to show the evolution of humans and the growth of human potential through time. The exhibit has a good flow that takes you through human evolution and its out come. The parts that were most interesting to me are: How we got to where we are? i.e. color sight, sound, etc. and The science of how we know these things. i.e. fossil recovery

The exhibit has this sorta laboratory feel to it. I think it it when you come in you have those 2 white glowing walls. I learned a lot about the origins of who we are and what made us how we are. I would have maybe liked this part explored more toward the end in the section that dealt with culture.

The use of touchscreens was pretty good in this exhibit but there were three areas that I saw poor use of space or not extremely interesting information.

At the begining of the installation, on glowing wall you have the tree of life section. The area is nicely designed, but the touchscreen was a little confusing. The graphic tried to explain the origins of life. The origin was not clear in the graphic. As you clicked on organisms on the tree, the flow between the screens was not evident at first. Also Compared to the other side, the family tree, which not loaded with information, there was a lot going on information wise in that portion of the exhibit.

Behind the skeletons in the front, the touchscreens are kinda lost there. I think there could have been an opportunity to project something behind the skeletons interacting with the skeletons.

There are 2 parts that I wish could have been put together. The Pepper’s ghost diorama and the touchscreen about where they found bones could have been intertwined alittle more. I think mostly because having 2 competing touchscreens and then the diorama makes for a bit of sonic confusion. A game element could have been nice for the fossil detective part. Especially cause the diorama has a good flow in the explanation, but I wanted to interact with it more.

The one game element there was was static and there it could have used a touchscreen. The round table with the bones was a perfect space to do a memory or bone comparison game. The game element was not evident either cause the gray on gray type was hard to read.

I never understood why this was blocked off, but now I see that to keep the flow and linearity of history in the round space, a physical barrier had to be put. Another barrier that was interesting was the brain part of the exhibit. The round brains case acted like a rotunda throwing toward the classroom area or towards the culture area.

This music game was really fun and interesting because you are able to experience different instruments from different cultures. I found it was a good touch to keep in the key that the style of music is written in. I liked this area of the exhibit because it explained the how we perceive culture and how we made it.