Volunteer Days!

~Ryan McHale, Curatorial Research Fellow

It was an exciting week at the Museum, well for me anyway. This week we had a total of 17 volunteers come out over three days to help bag, tag, and box artifacts from our collections. We made good progress towards sorting through the over 100 boxes in the Childers Collection and finished 44 boxes!  

The research and collection of Morlin Childers, one of our Museum founders, is currently drawing a lot of interest from professional researchers, students, and volunteers on a local and national level. Childers worked on archaeological sites throughout the Valley from the 1950s to the 1980s. His collection returned to the museum in 2015 from BLM, and we have been working on cataloguing the documents and artifacts ever since. 

There are thousands of objects in the collection, and there’s no perceivable organization to it. That's where I come in, with the help of volunteers, to bring order to the chaos. Our volunteers get a chance to go behind the scenes and get hands on experience curating our collection.

Last Saturday was our busiest day. Ten teenage volunteers from the Imperial County Department of Probations Community Work Service Program came out to help us sort artifacts. They got really into sorting, bagging, and tagging the artifacts. At the end of the day, a few asked if they could come back out to volunteer again and some asked if the museum was hiring. Their enthusiasm and interest in the collection really made my day! 

The work we completed is extremely important to the museum’s collections and ended up being a lot of fun. We still have a lot to do, and are going to need more volunteers. 

Are you interested in volunteering? Keep an eye out for our upcoming Volunteer Days. You can get in contact with us via our email ivdmuseum@gmail.com or give us a call at (760)358-7016.

Night at the Museum!

~Ryan McHale, Curatorial Research Fellow

Wow, what an exciting weekend! 23 students from Southwestern College, in Chula Vista, spent the past couple days at the Museum on a geology field trip led by Professor Carole Ziegler and her colleague Professor Bulent Bas. It was an awesome experience learning more about the geology of our desert and joining them on their desert excursions!

Arriving Friday evening, the students attended a stargazing lecture by Bradley Pickett, and afterwards, camped out at the Museum. Our Executive Director, David, spent the night at the Museum too, and brought along his husky, Brandy, who periodically checked in on the students to see how they were doing throughout the night.

After a Saturday morning lecture titled, “What?! There’s Water in the Desert!”, I joined the class on a hike to Mountain Palm Springs. For many of the students, it was their first time hiking in the desert and they were surprised to see running water and wildflowers. 

It felt surreal being surrounded by desert on all sides and relaxing in the cool shade of the palms, but this was no mirage. As you can see by the pictures, we couldn't have asked for a better day to explore!

I spent Saturday night at the Museum, and as much as I wanted it to be like the movie Night at the Museum, our exhibits didn’t come alive. We still had very lively night, and even saw a shooting star while out stargazing! Since it was such a clear night, I decided to sleep out under the stars. 

This was my first overnight at the Museum and I had an absolute blast! Every day here is an adventure, and I can't wait to see what else is in store!