Into the wild

Carved tortoise in soapstone, c. late 19th century, Agra. Permanent collection of Dr Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum

The first few months of the lockdown saw cooped-up humans take a renewed interest in nature, with social media buzzing with videos of dancing peacocks at Godrej Baug and flamingos turning the Uran wetlands into shades of pink. It also sparked off a larger conversation about climate change, nature reclaiming its space and evolution. While it's not possible to take this discourse to the zoo or the national park now, Dr Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum along with the non-profit organisation STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) Academy is organising an interactive Zoom session for kids from class six to eight to explore the animal kingdom through objects at the museum.

Ruta Waghmare-Baptista, assistant curator - education and collection at the museum, tells us the upcoming session, titled The Animal Kingdom, is part of the many children outreach activities that they have been conducting with STEAM, a collective of scientists, biologists and engineers who specialise in demystifying scientific concepts through storytelling. "There is a science and history behind all the artefacts in the museum. So, every month we have a theme that experts from STEAM address by connecting it with objects in the museum." She illustrates that previous sessions have been themed on the cannons at the museum and the physics behind it, and fossils and geology.

Carved snake in soapstone, c. late 19th century, Agra. Permanent collection of Dr Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum. Pics courtesy/The Museum

Shreeja Nambiar, program curator at STEAM Academy, shares that the session will be like a virtual walkthrough of the museum through Google Arts and Culture. "We will address evolution, classification, taxonomy and Darwin's theory of evolution," she says. First, an expert from the museum will expose students to the historic background of the objects related to the theme, Nambiar explains, adding, "Then, nuclear scientist and STEAM founder Dr AP Jayaraman will give a high-level perspective regarding evolution, how species change over time, and why it's important to study evolution. Next, biologist Abhishek Arekar will address the finer aspects of the object." This way, the children will get to see the same artefact from three perspectives - that of a historian's, a scientist's and a biologist's, Nambiar elaborates. She adds that two objects have been chosen for this session - a carved tortoise in soapstone and a carved snake in soapstone, both from c. late 19th century, Agra, and part of the permanent collection of the museum.

There will be a Q and A chat in the end for kids to learn more. "The idea behind these sessions is to encourage scientific thoughts in the minds of children through STEAM's unique storytelling format," Waghmare-Baptista sums up.

On August 31, from 11 am to 12 pm
Log on to bdlmuseum.org to register

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