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 Information
about the Research Training Program:
go directly to the current RTP on-line application forms
Smithsonian
Center for Education and Museum Studies Smithsonian Office of Fellowships - internships
Smithsonian Office of Fellowships - fellowships POST GRADUATES
CONTACT US
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Research
& Collections
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Smithsonian
Institution
National Museum of Natural History Research
Training Program 24 May 2003 - 2 August 2003 A total of 15 students were selected to participate in the '03 session of the Research Training Program, including three (3) international students; 2 from Canada and 1 from Bolivia. Schedule
of Events |
Poster |
Program
Summary Last
Updated: 29 July 2003
* * * ARRIVAL * * * * Friday, 23 May 2003 * 9:00 a.m. : Apartment inspection conducted by Nina Butler Check Points:
* Saturday, 24 May 2003 *
Location:
The Renaissance Phone:
(703) 560-8800 For questions contact: Jacqueline Tate or available property manager. Apartments
come fully furnished:
9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. : Apartment check-in continues. Option 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. : SOCIAL - host: Elisa Maldonado Location:
The Renaissance Topic: Welcome RTP students Join Elisa for a welcome picnic featuring hamburgers, veggie burgers, hot dogs, and fun. Elisa is a former RTP intern (Class of '00). She will offer insight and advice including information about commuting, sites to see in the DC area, and making the most out of the RTP. This is a great opportunity for everyone to informally meet and enjoy a fun afternoon. * * * Check-in Notes * * *
Week
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Week 7 *
* * WEEK 1 * * * * Monday, 26 May 2003 (Memorial Day Holiday) * 8:45 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. : PROGRAM ORIENTATION - host: Mary Sangrey 8:45 a.m. Arrival.
9:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Program Orientation / Completion of Registration Forms.
Topic:
Everything you ever wanted to know about the
Research Training Program - here's the chance to ask.
Founded in 1980, the Research Training Program (RTP) is a museum-based, undergraduate course in collections-based research and natural history studies including the biological, geological, and anthropological sciences. Developing confidence and competence in the research process is the cornerstone of the program. The course includes a curriculum of required activities and events plus a research topic conducted under the guidance of a professional scientist.
* Tuesday, 27 May 2003 * 8:30 - 9:15 a.m. : GROUP PHOTOGRAPH - host: Mary Sangrey
Topic: RTP Opening Reception. An informal gathering of residents from the NMNH community plus members from funding organizations and other special guests. Each research advisor will introduce their student to the group and students given the opportunity to offer a brief commentary.
3:00 - 5:00 p.m. : PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION Students:
Review and copy forms, test the e-mail system, and begin preparing your
project proposal. * Wednesday, 28 May 2003 * 9:00 a.m. - noon : RESEARCH
Topic: The Coelacanth - the greatest fish story ever told. In 1938, thirty two-year-old Marjorie Courtenay Latimer was the curator of a tiny museum in the port town of East London, northeast of Cape Town, South Africa. She had befriended a local seaman, Captain Hendrick Goosen, of the trawler Nerine, which fished the nearby coastal waters of the Indian Ocean. When he put into port the captain made a frequent practice of having the dockman call Miss Latimer to come look over the Nerine's catch. She was welcome to take any unusual specimens she might want for her museum. On December 23rd, 1938, the Nerine entered port after a stint trawling off the mouth of the nearby Chalumna River. The dockman called Marjorie, who was busy mounting a reptile collection, but felt she ought at least go down to the docks to wish the crew of the Nerine a merry Christmas. She took a taxi, delivered her greetings, and was about to leave when, according to her account, she noticed a blue fin protruding beneath a pile of rays and sharks on the deck. Pushing the overlaying fish aside revealed, as she would later write, "the most beautiful fish I had ever seen, five feet long, and a pale mauve blue with iridescent silver markings." Uncertain of what she found she made a rather crude sketch of the creature, which she mailed, along with a description, to Professor J.L.B. Smith, a forty one- year-old chemistry teacher with a locally well known passion for fish, at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, some fifty miles south of East London. A living dinosaur, it was said, would be no more amazing than this incredible discovery and the story of tracking down another specimen of this living fossil. Learn more at: http://www.dinofish.com/
Learn more at: http://www.mnh.si.edu/highlight/coelacanth/ and http://www.mnh.si.edu/highlight/coelacanth/usnm_specimens.htm
Topic: The US National Fish Collection
The fish collection was established in the mid 1800's, with the first entry in the specimen catalog ledgers recorded on December 15, 1856, for a sucker, Catostomus hudsonius, collected by S.F. Baird at Lake George, New York, in 1850. The fish collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History today contains more than 500,000 lots (a lot being all the specimens of a particular species collected at a particular place at a particular time). Approximately 16,700 lots are type specimens, that is, those specimens that form the basis for species descriptions. With an estimated number of 8 million specimens, the Smithsonian collection is the largest of its kind in the world, both in terms of quantity and diversity of coverage. See many different specimens from the Division of Fishes collections including cleared and stained specimens, interesting species from the ocean depths, and the NMNH coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae - a rare and ancient fish known only from the fossil record until a living specimen was collected off the coast of South Africa in 1938.
* Thursday, 29 May 2003 * 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. : RESEARCH
* Friday, 30 May 2003 * -
- - Vertebrate Zoology - - - 9:00 - 10:45 a.m. : LECTURE - host: Raul Diaz
Topic: The Lost World: Cerro de la Neblina Crammed into a helicopter with many weeks worth of supplies the team of biologists leave Caracas for base camp in the middle of the Venezuelan jungle. In the distance, half-hidden in the fog and rain is Cerra de la Neblina, discovered in 1955 (!), the fabled "mountain of the mist," a world of virtually unexplored peaks and canyons laden with scientific mysteries. Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle featured Neblina's tepui neighbor, Roirama, in his
famous book An
RTP classic! You can't miss Roy's famous lecture about the adventures
of field research, the search for (and discovery of?) living dinosaurs,
and the answer to the important question: "Would you like blueberries
with your oatmeal this morning?"
Topic: The US National Amphibian and Reptile Collection
The Division of Amphibians and Reptiles is the smallest but one of the fastest growing of the four divisions in the Department of Vertebrate Zoology.
The collection also includes histological microscope slides; dry or skeletal specimens; "lots" of larval specimens; and cleared and stained specimens.
Topic: The US National Mammal Collection
The Division of Mammals holds some of the most important collections of mammals in the world, including skins, skulls, skeletons, and fluid-preserved specimens. With roughly 580,000 voucher specimens and 3,500 primary types, it is by far the world's largest, nearly twice the size of the next largest mammal collection. The taxonomic and geographic scope of the collection spans the globe, with especially strong representation from North America, Central America, northern South America, Africa, and southeast Asia. * Saturday, 31 May 2003 * Option: 8:45 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. : FIELD TRIP - host: Elisa Maldonado
Learn more at: http://www.scientistscliffs.org/ Itinerary:
* * * Advisors and their families welcome. * * * * Sunday, 1 June 2003 * OPEN * * * Week 1 Notes * * *
* * * WEEK 2 * * * * Monday, 2 June 2003 * -
- - Invertebrate Zoology - - - 9:00 - 10:00 a.m. : LECTURE - host: Elisa Maldonado
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You are HERE. To continue select the next option.
3:30
- 6:00 p.m. : Apartment check-in
Location:
Director's Office
Topic: "Natural
History's Research and Collections" Following
the Opening Reception, distinguished guests will have the opportunity
to join research and collections staff on behind-the-scenes tours of
NMNH facilities. 
Location:
Anthropology Seminar Room
Then,
on the 30 July 1998, a second Coelacanth population was discovered by
American and Indonesian scientists off Sulawesi, Indonesia - . about 10,000
km east of where Coelacanths were previously known to occur in the Western
Indian Ocean. And so the story continues. 
Location:
Anthropology Seminar Room
"The
Lost World." Neblina and Roirama are remnants of an ancient plateau
that covered much of what is now the northern end of South America. Over
millions of years, the plateau was worn down by wind and water, leaving
a series of flat-topped mountains or "tepuis." Each tepui is
an austere "island" marooned in a sea of lowland forest and
savanna. As a result, the tepui inhabitants were isolated from the rest
of the world resulting in many unique remnant from a time long since passed
possessing characters which offer clues about evolution patterns and curiosities
about features whose significance has yet to be learned. 
The
collections include about 525,000 catalogued alcoholic specimens, including
over 230,000 salamanders, 125,000 frogs, 100,000 lizards, 45,000 snakes
plus caecilians, crocodilians, amphisbaenians, turtles, and the tuatara.
The
collection includes many historically important specimens. The oldest
originated from the activities of the US. Exploring Expedition, dating
from 1838-1842, and the personal collection of Spencer Fullerton Baird
(the second Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution), also from the 1840s.
In addition, the Smithsonian African Expedition acquired many specimens
from east Africa (1909-1911), some of which were collected by former President
Theodore Roosevelt.
Guides:
Dave Bohaska (phone: 202-357-2052) and Bob Purdy (phone:
202-357-1525).
Speaker:
Dr. Dave Pawson, Senior Research Zoologist, Curator of Echinoderms.
Associate in Invertebrates, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.
BA (1960), MS (1961), Ph.D. (1964) V
