Aggie BluePrint: 5 things you never knew we had on campus
February 27th, 2012 Posted in Arts and LifeBy Lindsay Nemelka
Aggie BluePrint is a new online student news website and print magazine.
LOGAN—Sometimes we are all so focused on getting from one side of campus to the other in less than the five minutes that class starts, that we don’t raise our heads from our snow-covered shoes to notice what’s around us.
1. Insect Museum
The second floor of the Biology and Natural Resource building boasts one of the top 10 insect collections in the world. Terry Griswold, adjunct professor and research entomologist, runs the bee side of the busy museum, which he says houses more than 1 million bees.
2. Gun Shed
OK, so this building doesn’t actually house guns, but according to Robert Parson of Merrill-Cazier Library Special Collections, that’s most likely what it was used for in the past.
Old Main once contained an armory where the military science department kept guns under lock and key in the 1890s.
3. Poisonous Plants
The Agriculture Research Service (ARS) Poisonous Plants Research Laboratory contains plants toxic to livestock, wildlife and humans. The goal of the lab is to identify plant toxins that are harmful to livestock and promote animal health. Though the lab contains national and international plant research, their primary focus is places in the U.S. where large livestock losses occur due to plant toxins.
Kip Panter, director of the laboratory, said that even though plants are deemed “toxic” we shouldn’t always worry.
4. Outdoor Amphitheater
If you haven’t walked the 97 steps up the A Day ’44 trail of Old Main Hill, you probably haven’t noticed the 2,003-square-foot concrete stage and wooden benches tucked away on the hill’s southwest corner.
The amphitheater was built by students in 1935, and was seen as “one of the most attractive sites in America with its overlook of Cache Valley.”
5. Singing Shoes
The Klompen exhibit in the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art is made up of 96 wooden Dutch clogs that play melodies.
TP
Tags: USU attractions
One Response to “Aggie BluePrint: 5 things you never knew we had on campus”
By Solarthermie on Feb 29, 2012
I adore how you happen to be thinking and writing!