Delaware Freshwater Wetlands Art and Essay Contests
We’re joining with the Delaware Department of Education along with State Senator Stephanie Hansen, State Representative Sophie Phillips, and community partners to promote the Delaware Freshwater Wetlands art and essay contests for Delaware school children.
The artwork will be displayed first at the Department of Education from May 8-June 8. Selected artwork and essays will go on exhibit at the museum this summer.
Students will create a 2D work of art to help celebrate our increased awareness of the importance of our Freshwater Wetlands in Delaware. Artwork due to District Offices by May 1.
Elementary (3rd-5th grade): Write an essay that supports three ways you and your family could conserve and protect freshwater wetlands and why. Include at least three references that you used as sources for your information.
Middle School (6th-8th grade): Write an essay that supports why freshwater wetlands are important to Delaware. Use multiple resources to develop your essay that are listed in a bibliography. This essay should be at least 500 words with bibliography.
High School (9 through 12th grade): How do human activities affect freshwater wetlands? Provide specific examples. Provide several solutions that could improve or restore Delaware’s freshwater wetlands. This essay should be at least 1,000 words and must include a bibliography.
Prizes will be given to first, second and third place in elementary, middle, and high school and each county (Kent, Sussex, and NCC). Download the form below to learn more.
Outdoor Banner exhibit from the IF/THEN® Collection
This Is What A Scientist Looks Like, a new outdoor banner exhibit featuring 16 women in STEM, is now on display. The banners highlight several IF/THEN® Ambassadors along with local scientists and engineers, including our own Director of Collections and Curator of Mollusks Liz Shea, Ph.D., Kadine Mohomed of W. L. Gore & Associates, Jen Sheran of DuPont, marine scientist Jessica Myers, and Jacqueline Means, Founder of the Wilmington Urban STEM Initiative. The exhibit is funded through a grant awarded by the Association of Science and Technology Centers with support from Lyda Hill Philanthropies and the IF/THEN Initiative and sponsored locally by Bank of America.
Wears many hats at a space agency, from engineering to communicating about the search for life beyond Earth.
Video
Dr. Jaye Gardiner
Illustrator and Cancer Biologist
Studies the biology behind cancer and uses comics/trading cards to show that science is for everyone.
Sydney Hamilton
Aerospace Engineer & Engineering Manager
Leads a team of structural analysts who support multiple aerospace programs for space crafts and commercial aircraft.
Video
Dr. Ronda Hamm
Entomologist and Educator
Develops and implements strategies and relationships that promote STEM for future generations while showing people that insects are not scary.
Video
Dr. Lataisia C. Jones
Neuroscientist, Advocate and STEM Educator
Advocates for STEM diversity while spreading the joy of studying the brain.
Video
Dr. M. Nia Madison
Biomedical Scientist, Director of HIV Research, Professor, CEO and Author
Engages youth in STEAM community outreach programming through her nonprofit and instructs undergraduate students in microbiology and sustainability practices.
Video
Jacqueline Means
The STEM Queen
Uses her passion for and love of STEM to teach young girls fun, hands-on experiments and empower them to go into the field.
Dr. Kadine Mohomed
Core Technology Scientist
Applies her expertise in materials characterization to understand and promote innovation that enhances performance in products of high societal value.
Dr. Burcin Mutlu-Pakdil
Astrophysicist
Uses the world’s largest telescopes to understand the nature of dark matter and galaxy formation by studying the smallest galaxies.
Jess Myers, M.S.
Marine Scientist
Advocates for healthy oceans and marine life through art, public outreach, and her research on plastic pollution.
Dr. Elizabeth Shea
Director of Collections & Curator of Mollusks
Expands, sustains and uses natural history collections to understand cephalopod biodiversity.
Jen Sheran
Technical Training Program Manager
Creates and implements solutions to keep a global community of engineers in the semiconductor industry on the leading edge of technology.
Dr. Helen Tran
Molecular Architect and Polymer Chemist
Works to make future plastics and electronic products fully degradable.
Video
Dr. Danielle Twum
Cancer Immunologist and Translational Scientist Liaison
Conducts research in oncology and clinical immunology.
Video
Sarah A. Wilson
Mechanical Engineer
Intersects engineering with personal passions like skiing and gardening to make a difference in the health and safety of people and the planet.
Video
The du Pont Trophy
On exhibit in the Community Room: the du Pont Trophy original paintings by artist Lauren J. Sweeney
For more than 50 years, the museum has presented the du Pont Trophy Award to the “overall outstanding exhibit” entered at shell shows around the country. The award honors exceptional citizen scientists having a passion for shells, shell collecting, and the natural history of mollusks.
For the majority of its history, the du Pont Trophy was a simple engraved plaque. As part of the Museum’s 40th anniversary celebration in 2012, Director of Collections and Curator of Mollusks, Liz Shea, Ph.D. re-imagined the award to celebrate the variety in the museum’s vast collection of more than two million mollusks. She turned to long-time museum supporter and local artist, Lauren J. Sweeney, Ph.D. to make this vision a reality. The result is an original watercolor highlighting a different shell from the collection each year. A framed limited-edition, signed print of this commission is presented to the du Pont Trophy winners.
Lauren Sweeney’s paintings are informed by a lifetime of scientific observation. Originally a biologist who focused her talents on research, teaching, and scientific illustrations, Lauren is now a full-time artist. Her attention to detail brings the shape, color, texture, and pattern of her subjects into sharp focus. Lauren has exhibited her work in the greater Philadelphia area, including the Sketch Club, Gallery Twenty Two, and the Main Line Art Center.
The original paintings, currently on exhibit, are for sale for $600 to benefit the museum’s collections.
2023 duPont Trophy
Lambis lambis
The 2023 du Pont Trophy features the changing morphology of Lambis lambis. These dramatically different stages are symbolic of the major metamorphosis the museum experienced over the past few years. The Delaware Museum of Nature and Science reopened to the public in May 2022 with completely renovated exhibit spaces.
2022 duPont Trophy
Melongena corona
This painting depicts the marine snail Melongena corona as positioned on Curator of Mollusks Elizabeth Shea, Ph.D.’s kitchen table. The specimen (and setting) was chosen in recognition of the chaotic year ushered in by COVID.
SOLD
2020 du Pont Trophy
Spirula spirula
This painting features the internal shell of Spirula spirula, a deep sea cephalopod commonly referred to as ram’s horn squid. They are more often collected as shells than as live organisms. S. spirula was selected for the painting in recognition of research projects conducted by Widener University students.
2019 du Pont Trophy
Tellina radiata
This specimen of Tellina radiata, a bivalve mollusk commonly known as the Sunrise Tellin, is from the Alison Bradford collection, bequeathed to the museum by Alison Bradford, a longtime volunteer and member of the Board of Trustees. Bradford had been at the museum for over 30 years. She passed away in the summer of 2018 and transferred her collection of more than 1,000 shells to the museum, most collected in Gasparilla Island, Florida, where she owned a home.
2018 du Pont Trophy
Haliotis fulgens Philippi
The pearlescent marine sea snail abalone is the inspiration for the 2018 du Pont Trophy, featuring two specimens of the green abalone Haliotis fulgens Philippi, 1845 (DMNH 10958). These specimens have a beautiful nacreous layer and were selected by the museum’s first Mollusk Curator, R. Tucker Abbott, for illustration in the second edition of American Seashells. Published in 1974, the book is an essential resource for shell lovers and an important part of the museum’s history.
SOLD
2017 du Pont Trophy
Liguus crenatus variation
The 2017 du Pont trophy was based on shells owned by renowned Delaware illustrator Frank Schoonover, a gift from one of his most well-known clients, Irénée du Pont, owner of Granogue in Delaware and the fabled Xanadu mansion in Cuba, where the shells were collected. The shells were donated to the museum in December 2015 by Schoonover’s grandson John Schoonover.
2016 du Pont Trophy
Anodonta imbecilis from Florida
This year’s shell is a group of freshwater bivalves, commonly known as Paper Pondshells, collected in Lake Talquin, Florida in 1954. Freshwater bivalves are the focus of a recent National Science Foundation grant that will help the museum share its collections on the web.
2015 du Pont Trophy
Leporicypraea mappavariation
The museum’s mollusk collection contains over 250,000 boxes (or “lots”) of shells, making it one of the largest collections in North America. The Map Cowries in this painting highlight the depth of the museum’s holdings and the variation found within a single species.
2014 du Pont Trophy
Spondylus with data label
New collections come into the museum from many sources, often accompanied by old data labels. This specimen of Thorny Oyster is a beautiful and ornate U.S. species, complete with an interesting original data card.
2013 du Pont Trophy
Scaphella junonia on sand
Finding a Junonia on the beaches of the Florida Gulf Coast is cause for celebration. This composition highlights the popular marine snail resting on a background of sand collected from Boca Grande, Florida by long-time museum trustee and volunteer Alison Bradford.
SOLD
2012 du Pont Trophy
Festilyria dupontiholotype
The subject of the first watercolor is Festilyria duponti, a shell named by Clifton Stokes Weaver in honor of Delaware Museum of Natural History founder, John E. du Pont. The background is a representation of a technical book on shells, co-authored by du Pont and Weaver.
Oceans
Vast moving waters give life to our blue planet. Oceans cover two-thirds of our planet and include the largest unexplored areas on Earth. They also affect life here on land. Like the rainforests, oceans produce oxygen for the world and regulate our climates. Protecting them is vital for our survival.
Beneath the water’s surface, mountains, valleys, and plains shape a variety of ecosystems: sunny and shallow coastal waters, vast expanses of dimly lit mid-water, and the inky darkness of the deepest sea, all providing habitats for diverse marine life. World Ocean Day is designated to bring awareness to the importance of our oceans and the need to protect them. At the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science, guests may explore three different marine ecosystems — shallow, mid-water, and deep sea — today and every day.
Mid-Water
Sunlight fades away in the ocean’s twilight realm
The mid-water exhibit is generously sponsored in honor of Leila Saavalinen Steele
Most of the world’s oceans are mid-water, located between the surface shallows and the seafloor far below. Here, in the largest expanse of unexplored space left on Earth, immense whales and giant squid swim alongside fishes and invertebrates of all sizes.
The Mid-Water Ocean exhibit includes the juvenile humpback whale skull collected by DelMNS staff in 2018. The whale exhibit is sponsored by M&T Bank | Wilmington Trust
Deep in the mid-water, light is scarce, temperatures are low, and pressure is high. Sea life has found survival strategies for this harsh environment.
The Nightly Commute: Every night as the sun sets, many ocean residents commute up towards surface waters in search of food. As the sun rises, they return to deeper waters, where darkness helps them hide from predators. This behavior, called diel vertical migration, varies depending on the species and its life stage. Some organisms travel long distances while others stay mostly at one depth.
Deep-Sea Dive
Take the plunge into an ocean canyon expedition
The ocean’s canyons are deep and dramatic, just like those on land. Marine scientists explore these mysterious realms with remotely operated vehicles or ROVs – small submersible vessels launched from research ships.
Scientists and engineers remain on the ship, guiding the ROV’s descent to roam the canyon floor. As the vessel’s cameras record the trip, engineers use its robotic arms to collect specimens of sea life.
These dives provide valuable glimpses into our vast and unexplored oceans.
Ocean canyons are narrow valleys with steep sides cut into the edges of continents under oceans. They can be several thousand meters deep. This video shows a dive into Kinlan Canyon, located in the Atlantic Ocean about 600 kilometers (375 miles) east of New York City.Museum scientists collected these specimens from canyons in the North Atlantic using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). The jars were hand-blown by At-Mar Glass in Kennett Square, PA. Each jar has a glass armature created specifically to hold each specimen.
Shallow Water
The ocean’s shallow, clear waters are full of life.
Around the edges of continents, the oceans are shallow and sunlight can reach down to the seafloor. Fishes, crustaceans, and many other organisms browse on submerged grasses and swim among kelp forests.
In warm, shallow seas, tiny coral polyps make stony skeletons that gradually build up into immense structures. These coral reefs overflow with diverse plant and animal life.
The coral reef was updated and refreshed. Fish, mollusks, and other invertebrates reside in the coral reef in addition to coral.
Coral Reef
One of the most frequent questions asked about our exhibits: “Is the coral reef staying?”
It is! The museum’s popular coral reef exhibit is getting a new look, with updated and refurbished elements. The scene is designed to look like Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The exhibit features a wide variety of corals — the animals that make the coral reefs — in many shapes, sizes, and colors. In addition, fish, mollusks and other specimens are represented.
The Great Barrier Reef is home to ten percent of the world’s known fish species. Large brain corals are slow growing and stable. This one is has large, meandering ridges where the animal body is anchored.Our Director of Collections and Senior Interpretation Manager work with the Dixon Studios team to place the specimens.Vibrant colors help fish blend in with brightly colored corals.The Disco Clam’s (Ctenoides ales) body at the base of the blood red tentacles can flash light like a disco ball.Spiny oysters are found cemented to hard surfaces. The spiny shell protects the animal within. Our reef features three different species.Directors of Exhibits and Collections removed the sand from the reef to prepare it for installing specimens.Giant clams eat plankton but also have algae living in their bodies. During the day these algae use sunlight to make food for the clams.The refurbished coral reef is surrounded by colorful murals that help set the scene.Some elements have returned, like the popular Orange Clownfish (Amphiprion percula). Flat, thin and whorled, Plate Coral (Montipora foliosa) is common on reefs in the Indo-West Pacific and is featured in the exhibit.
A flock of new specimens
Look up into the trees in the Regional Journey Gallery, and you’ll see birds and small mammals perched on branches and tucked into crevices. Among the new additions added to the galleries recently include a variety of bird taxidermy, including a dramatic Bald Eagle, owls, woodpeckers, a Kingfisher and a family of Wood Ducks, with more scheduled for installation soon. Take a look at some of the newest arrivals.
Metamorphosis in Progress
Take a look at some of the new exhibit components and other changes happening at the museum!
Our exterior sign changed recently, and is now under wraps until reopening.Take a look at what it looks like here!The Regional Journey Gallery includes murals from spaces all over Delaware.Model trees anchor the Bald Cypress Swamp area of the Regional Journey Gallery.This wood duckling taxidermy will be perched in a cypress tree.Giant floor maps set the stage for traveling through various ecosystems in Delaware and around the world.Dude, our museum cat, took a stroll across the Delaware map. Another view of the Regional Gallery.The Delaware Bay is one of the ecosystems highlighted in the gallery.In the Ellice & Rose McDonald Foundation PaleoZone, dinoaurs and other fearsome Cretaceous creatures rule. Meet the dryptosaurus.In the Alison K. Bradford Global Journey Gallery, a crawl through space will take young guests under the ice in the Arctic.Some of the ecosystems in the Global Journey Gallery are the Tropical Rainforest and the Oceans.Among some of the taxidermy in the Global Journey Gallery include this polar bear. The elephant reigns over the African savanna.
Fishy Behavior: Modeling a snack for a Giant Squid
The giant squid (Architeuthis dux) in the museum’s atrium has become one of our iconic exhibits, with thousands gazing up to it in wonder every year. Look up, and you’ll see an orange roughy fish (Hoplostethus atlanticus), trying desperately to avoid the grasp of the squid. But the orange roughy wasn’t the original fish in the atrium. In 2007, new information about the feeding grounds of giant squid suggested they hunt in deep water – a place where tuna (the previous display fish) rarely go. So, the museum’s Curator of Mollusks, Liz Shea, Ph.D., and former Exhibits Manager Jennifer Sontchi decided to update the exhibit, concluding the orange roughy was the best choice from a scientific, exhibit design, and educational perspective.
While many of the animals in museum displays are real specimens preserved with taxidermy, others have been sculpted by museum artists. Since orange roughy populations are vulnerable to extinction from over-fishing, we chose to sculpt a model for the exhibit instead of displaying an actual preserved fish. Follow along below to see the fascinating process behind creating a scientifically accurate museum model.
Reference
The first step towards producing any realistic display is excellent reference material. Dr. Liz Shea, Curator of Mollusks, oversaw the entire project to make certain every detail is correct. The fish at the top of the photo is the paper template created to provide the measurements and proportions of a real orange roughy. The fish in the lower part of the photo is the clay model itself.
Supplemental fins
This photo shows a red snapper fish having its fins molded. We made molds of the snapper’s fins, modified the casts, and inserted them into the clay model of our orange roughy. These fin casts are more realistic than if they were sculpted from scratch.
The model
The clay model of the orange roughy is complete in this photo. You can see the plastic, white, snapper fin casts inserted into the model. The clay surrounding the model is the beginning of the next step, which is making a two-piece mold.
The mold
Here you see the clay model encased on one side in a pale-colored, flexible plastic, which is cradled by a hard, grey shell. Once both sides of the clay model are molded this way, the clay fish model is removed and discarded. The mold now provides an empty space exactly the shape and size of the clay model. A cast is made by filling that fish-shaped space with a liquid plastic that then hardens into an exact replica of an orange roughy.
The cast
This is the finished plastic cast of the model. All that is needed now is paint!
The display
Voila! The orange roughy is sculpted, molded, cast, painted, and attached to the giant squid with hidden pins. That orange roughy better swim faster (just keep swimming, just keep swimming) if he wants to get away.
