Biodiverse BC: Natural History
Born of a desire to connect directly with the curators, collection managers, scientists, and researchers whose work is the bedrock of museums, the Royal BC Museum’s Community Engagement team is hosting a series of natural history discussions across the province. Hear from Royal BC Museum staff and valued partners as they discuss ongoing research, fieldwork, and the value of collaboration.
Mini-Symposium and Community Conversations – Vancouver Session
The Royal BC Museum invites you to gather, listen, learn, and reflect alongside individuals who work in the natural history field, hosted at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Listen to experts in the field and participate in discussions around how we share our work, ways to collaborate, and our relevancy outside our own locations.
This is a FREE event. Participants need to register! REGISTER HERE
Speakers:
- Dr. Ken Marr, Curator of Botany, Royal BC Museum
- Heidi Guest, Collections Manager, Royal BC Museum
- Dr. Sharon Fortney, Curator of Indigenous Collections and Engagement, Museum of Vancouver
- Derek Tan, Manager of Exhibitions, Beaty Biodiversity Museum
- Cynthia Sayre, Curator of Collections, VanDusen Botanical Garden
Talks:
New Discoveries from the High Mountains of BC, by Dr. Ken Marr
An illustrated presentation about a puzzling distribution in several alpine plants and what plant DNA might be telling us about the ice-age history of BC.
The Herbarium Process: Collection to Accession, by Heidi Guest
How do live plants get transformed into herbarium specimens and why? Follow along on the journey of a plant from its being collected in the wild to becoming a scientific Herbarium specimen. Learn why we create plant collections and the many ways they are used in scientific study.
Exhibiting Traditional Ecological Knowledge at MOV, by Dr. Sharon Fortney
Sharon will discuss how the Museum of Vancouver is incorporating local Indigenous knowledge into exhibits and public programs at the Museum of Vancouver. Highlighted projects include the Unity Indigenous Plant Garden, the exhibitions “That Which Sustains” and “Wild Things” and a school program kit being developed in partnership with the Tsleil-Waututh Nation.
Exhibiting Nature: Questions for the Curious, by Derek Tan
What are the challenges in exhibiting a natural history collection to the public? As museums change to meet the needs of the multiple communities they serve, how does the knowledge held within and around its specimens get shared? How much is guided by the existing interests of the audience, and how much comes from the strengths of the collection, current events, or information from subject matter experts? How can voices of different shapes fit within its sometimes-square walls?
Living Museum Calm, Connect, Teach and Inspire – Perspectives from a Botanical Garden, by Cynthia Sayre
VanDusen Botanical Garden is a 55-acre garden in the heart of Vancouver with 70 curated collections and over 8,000 plant taxa from around the world. As a public garden and living museum, VanDusen offers space for visitors, volunteer programs, adult, youth, and family education programs, ex-situ conservation, and research collaboration. Sam Sivertz, VanDusen’s Plant Documentarian Technician, and Cynthis Sayre, Curator of Collections, will provide a behind-the-scenes look at how to balance these various roles while protecting and growing the garden’s living collections.