Yellowstone is as familiar as a friend’s face: our first national park, our nation’s “best idea,” the home of Old Faithful, the playground of bear, bison, and wolves, a postcard from a family vacation. It is a land we have known forever, an American icon. Yet Yellowstone is also a frontier, offering new paths of scientific exploration and promising us a fresh understanding of life’s origins, life’s diversity, even an answer to the question of life’s existence throughout the universe.
The Museum of the Rockies has created a first-of-its-kind partnership with Yellowstone National Park and Montana State University to showcase Yellowstone’s science. Greater Yellowstone is one of the world’s last intact ecosystems. Its survival depends on scientific inquiry and the careful, intelligent stewardship of its resources.
With our partners, the Museum will gather and interpret the knowledge that scientists are discovering in the park, sharing it not only in our hallways in Bozeman, Montana, but in
classrooms and museums around the globe, through real-time data streaming and other cutting-edge outreach technologies. From habitat studies that help track herds of megafauna, to the biological detective work that has discovered living enzymes in the searing heat of the earth’s magma, to medical research into the causes and possible cures of cancer, we will share the work that hundreds of scientists are performing in Yellowstone.
The challenges we face as a society today include saving the planet, living together on it, and advancing our scientific knowledge to improve the quality of life for generations to come—that is, our past, present, and future. The science of Yellowstone can help us understand the interconnectedness of this ecosystem with all of the earth’s people. Perched physically on Yellowstone’s border, we have a unique window into discoveries that may change the very nature of humanity, and through our partners we now have the capacity to broadcast these discoveries far beyond our backyard, from Bozeman to Baikal, from Reykjavik to Rotorua.
The greatest discoveries in the 21st Century will be those that use science to test the limits, peel away the layers, and push the boundaries. In concert with MSU, YNP, and scientists and educators across the globe, we are “the little museum that could”—and will—share this knowledge with the world. It is our passion and our promise. Will you join us?