In our second blog ahead of our new exhibition Gallipoli: The scale of our war opening on April 18, Māori curator Puawai Cairns reveals some of her research into a Māori soldier that served at Gallipoli. Unlike many of the other Māori soldiers I researched for this exhibition, 2nd LieutenantRead more
If your school or Early Childhood Centre contributes a photo of a spider (or fern) to our citizen science projects, we’ll include the photo in Te Papa’s DeCLASSIFIED! exhibition*. More on the exhibition DeCLASSIFIED! Nature’s secrets exposed at Te Papa. * provided the contributed photo has a Creative Commons licence.Read more
As the museum sector wages war on the selfie stick, other museums including Te Papa have embraced the camera extension device. Taking a selfie is quickly becoming a part of the museum experience at Te Papa. We only need to check Te Papa’s Instagram account to see that our visitorsRead more
A month today Te Papa’s new exhibition Gallipoli: The scale of our war opens to the public. Keep an eye out each Wednesday over the next couple of months for a new blog from the team working on creating this exhibition. To kick things off, we’ve got a post from HistoryRead more
This week Te Papa is thrilled to be hosting the New Zealand Dance Company who are bringing their acclaimed full-length dance-piece Rotunda to Soundings Theatre. Described as ‘another fierce and fabulous strike for professional and profound contemporary dance in New Zealand’ (Bernadette Rae, The NZ Herald), Rotunda has been created by created byRead more
New electronic Flora of New Zealand (eFloraNZ) treatments have just been published for six fern families in New Zealand. The new treatments include the hairy tree ferns, Dicksonia, and the fork ferns, Tmesipteris. Each eFloraNZ treatment is a definitive, peer-reviewed account of a group of plants. eFloraNZ treatment for the Dicksoniaceae (theRead more
Introducing a significant part of Te Papa’s macro-algae (seaweed) collection – The complete Algae Nova-Zelandicae Exciccatae by Victor W Lindauer. Algae Nova-Zelandicae Exsiccatae – 14 Fascicles – Victor W Lindauer. Victor Willhelm Lindauer (1888-1964) was a school teacher who became fascinated with seaweeds after he met a team of North American phycologists (seaweed scientists) who visited the Bay of IslandsRead more
A relatively little known but fascinating area of Te Papa’s vast collection is its coins and medals. Medals are not only used to recognise military achievements – many of the medals in the collection, and those that I have been looking at, commemorate other events and achievements. Some medals were madeRead more
“Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science…” – Edwin Powell Hubble. The natural world is full of amazing opportunities for exploration and creativity, and therefore an excellent platform on which to build and grow the scientific thinking, knowledge and confidence ofRead more
As the Science Collection Manager responsible for managing the botany collection, part of my job is to increase public access to the collection. One way to achieve this is through online narratives. This blog series will highlight some recent botany narratives. In this blog we introduce narrative topics of some recent, veryRead more
Te Papa Botany researchers Heidi Meudt, Jessie Prebble and Carlos Lehnebach have recently published a new paper in the scientific journal Plant Systematics and Evolution on New Zealand forget-me-nots (genus Myosotis). There are approximately 100 species of forget-me-not species in the genus Myosotis, about half of which are only foundRead more
Remembering comes in many different forms. In Te Papa’s commemorative display Remember: the Canterbury Earthquakes, we feature a number of beautiful objects made from materials salvaged from the quake damaged city – they are ‘material memories’. As people rebuild their lives, homes and businesses, many are seeking to incorporate elementsRead more
The DeCLASSIFIED! citizen science projects have been running for nearly three months. These projects are an opportunity to learn spiders and ferns with Te Papa’s experts, and to help us with our research. The Ferns with Te Papa project has gathered up more than 920 observations from 59 contributors. 365Read more
A museum exhibition? In our school? Not quite! But what about a museum case? For around 50 years in the 20th century, Te Papa’s predecessors delivered important, informational, and sometimes downright kooky exhibition suitcases to schools around the country. How do I know? My research project has had me rummagingRead more
New bird species are added to the New Zealand list at a rate of at least five per decade. In most cases these are lone individuals that have blown off course (mainly across the Tasman Sea), or migratory species that have apparently ‘got in with the wrong crowd’, and endedRead more
