Award allows museum to “breathe new life into old bones”

Pictured at left: John Nance, Assistant Curator of Paleontology, pictured with the MakerBot Replicator Z-18.

Solomons, MD – The Paleontology Department at the Calvert Marine Museum was recently awarded a Museums for America grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Funding for the project, “Breathing New Life Into Old Bones” has allowed the Calvert Marine Museum to purchase Avizo 3D software and a MakerBot Replicator Z-18 3D printer to create models of specimens from their paleontology collection. It provides the museum the opportunity to print images and create visuals and hands-on models for use in educational programming, public exhibits, conferences, and peer-reviewed journals. CMM Paleontologists may now visualize, analyze, and understand the scientific data in the collection in ways that would be unattainable by other means.

“This software and printer will enhance our ability to share discoveries with the public, teach about life millions of years ago and promote understanding of why things are the way they are today,” says John Nance, Assistant Curator of Paleontology at the Calvert Marine Museum.