This morning, I had the pleasure of visiting the Museum of the Earth a few minutes away from downtown Ithaca. Even though I didn’t know that this museum even existed until a few days ago when I signed up for the event, I’m so glad that I was able to go. On our tour, we had the chance to explore the different eras of time, which included various different organisms, some of which I’d never even heard of before. It’s been a while since I’ve taken Earth Science (in fact, the last time I did was in 8th grade), so it was fun getting a mini-lesson in geology, evolution, and paleontology all in one.

One point that I was most curious about through the tour was whether or not the Earth is currently headed for another massive extinction (like the ones at the end of all the eras preceding our current one). With climate change and global warming very serious issues in today’s time, I was glad that GRF Yashira brought this point up with our tour guide. Though the Earth may still have a few million (or billion) years to go, it made me think that if we want to preserve life (and history, such as all the artifacts presented in the museum) on Earth, we have to do more (as the human race) to keep this planet and its inhabitants healthy.

I think, overall, I would’ve made Ross Geller (my third favorite character from Friends) extraordinarily proud. Go ahead, ask me a question about the Jurassic period. I probably won’t be able to answer it correctly, but I’m sure I’ll get close, thanks to this event! 🙂

Below are some photos I took while touring the museum. If you ever get an hour or two of free time (which can be rare here at Cornell), take a trip down to the Museum of the Earth. I would have to say it’s one of the cooler, more educational parts of the city of Ithaca.

A skeleton of a woolly mammoth.

A fossil of a Great Whale that died in the 1990s. This fossil hangs right at the entrance of the museum and instantly got me excited for the tour when we walked in.