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North Carolina Maritime Museum

Description

The North Carolina Maritime Museum documents, preserves, and researches the maritime history of coastal North Carolina. All of the museum's programs and exhibits, both general and specialized, interpret the state's cultural maritime history and offer a larger national perspective on coastal environment and barrier island ecology. The museum holdings include more than 15,000 cultural artifacts and natural history specimens, some 2,000 photographs and negatives, and 1,000 flat documents. The material culture collection of more than 2,000 artifacts includes uniforms of the U.S. Lifesaving Service and U.S. Coast Guard, lifesaving gear and ephemera, fishing gear, decoys, boat models and half-hulls, a Fresnel lens, 200 woodworking tools, nets, sea chests, and maritime paintings and prints. The small craft collection includes 37 historic indigenous boats (including a rare Civil War-era split-log canoe), over 100 models and half-models, 24 outboard engines, and 60 sextants, compasses, telescopes, and plotting instruments that document coastal navigation.

The museum offers teacher workshops, educational programs delivered in-classroom and in conjunction with curricula, a summer science program which includes maritime history, and exhibits.

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Alien Invasions

Quiz Webform ID

22414

date_published

Sat, 10/10/2009 - 20:00

Teaser

For each pair of animal and plant species, identify the one that is not native to America.

quiz_instructions

America's wildlife looks different than it did before Columbus: Newcomers to North America introduced many plants and animals. Some introductions were accidental, but others were made to "improve" the New World.

In each pair of species, one is native to America and one was introduced. Select the introduced species:

Quiz Answer

1. House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), first introduced by the New York-based American Acclimatization Society in the 1850s, and by others during that decade.

2. Starling (Sturnus vulgari), first introduced by Eugene Schieffelin of the American Acclimatization Society into Central Park in 1877.

3. Rock Pigeon (Columba livia), first introduced to North America in 1606 at Port Royal, Nova Scotia.

4. Kudzu (Pueraria lobata), first introduced on a large scale to America from about 1935 by the Soil Conservation Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps, which planted it extensively in southern states in an effort to control soil erosion.

5. Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), first introduced by British colonists as a garden green and medicinal herb.

6. Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio), first brought to the U.S. in 1831, but widely introduced by U.S. Fish and Fisheries Commission head Spencer Fullerton Baird soon after 1871, as a food source in the nation's overfished rivers and lakes.

7. Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), first introduced into North America in 1884. It now clogs many lakes, ponds, and inland waterways.

8. Gypsy Moth (Lymantria dispar), introduced to Medford, MA, in 1868, by French amateur entomologist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, in an effort to cross breed them with silk moths in the U.S., which had become susceptible to various diseases.

For more information

The University of Georgia's Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health lists invasive species—plants, animals, insects, and others—in the U.S. today. It does not, however, describe the history of most invasions—a classroom exercise might involve students selecting a species from the list and tracing its introduction to the U.S. through research elsewhere. For instance, the New York Times' archived articles include an 1877 article on the American Acclimatization Society's release of sparrows, skylarks, and other birds in North America.

Try a general search of NHEC using the keywords "Civilian Conservation Corps" to learn more about the history and activities of this New Deal organization.

For websites offering primary sources and high-quality information on the environment, conservation, and other ecology-related topics in U.S. history, search NHEC's Website Reviews—Topic: Environment and Conservation. Or search Online History Lectures using the same topic to turn up audiovisual presentations, long and short, on nature and U.S. history.

Sources

Peter Coates, American Perceptions of Immigrant and Invasive Species: Strangers on the Land (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).
Edward Hicks, Peaceable Kingdom, c. 1834.
T. S. Palmer, "The Danger of Introducing Noxious Animals and Birds," Forest and Stream, June 1899, 443-444.

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Archie Carr: the Man Who Saved Sea Turtles

Description

"Historian Fritz Davis reveals the remarkable life and work of Archie Carr, the Florida scientist whose research on the ecology and migrations of sea turtles established the basis for their conservation in Florida and the Caribbean. This illustrated talk reveals Carr's many achievements in science and conservation as well as his intriguing personality."

Contact name

Walsh, Lynn

Sponsoring Organization

Friends of the North Indian River County Library

Phone number

1 772-589-1355

Target Audience

General Public

Start Date

Mon, 02/04/2008 - 19:00

Duration

One and a half hours