Primarily on display on the third floor of Clapp, this collection is curated by the Geoscience Technician, Claire Pless. Although an impressive variety of specimens are already on display, there are so many more beautiful rocks and minerals hidden away in cabinets and closets.

You can see the largest piece in this collection, the enormous stone slab with dinosaur footprint imprints, in the Clapp building first floor East stairwell. Not on view are the vast majority of the nearly 10,000 smaller specimens in the Mount Holyoke collection. They await students like you to go through them and pick out some to put on display for everyone to see! 

On view in Clapp basement and first floor hallways, the existing displays showcase a small part of the enormous collection of sea shells and animal bones assembled over the long history of Biology at the College.

The Mount Holyoke College Herbarium houses dry pressed plant specimens going as far back as the 1840's. These samples are stored in fireproof cabinets in Clapp basement. Although these specimens are too delicate for routine handling, some may soon be on display in cases in the hallways of the Clapp building.

As opposed to the live rats and mice in the Animal Labs in Carr and Reese, the animals on view in the hallways of Clapp basement are long dead and preserved. Although they can be sad to see, it is important to remember that these animals still remain valuable tools in Biology, especially when it comes to teaching new scientists like you.

From 200-300 year old barometers in Kendade atrium, to hundred year old microscopes and balances in Clapp basement, there is already some very cool old instrumentation on view. But there is so much more hidden away in closets and prep rooms, waiting to reemerge from storage to be transformed from teaching and research tool to museum piece.