When you first step into the Edna Lawrence nature lab, you might accidentally bump into

a skeleton on wheels.

And then you'll notice that just a couple feet away, there is a swan frozen in mid-flight

over a wooden table.

Every single inch of the walls is covered in these giant cabinets that are filled to

the brim with dried plants, shells.

Cidermy mammals, insects, bugs, skeletons.

Inside this room, there are thousands of specimens of plants, of animals.

They hang from the ceiling, they're tucked in cabinet shelves, and secreted away in

sliding metal drawers.

And why would you have all that?

Well partly it was a reference for drawing and for art.

And I think that one of the most interesting things to study is life.

Just life.

In all different types of life and how they're all connected, the nature lab kind of distills

all that in a single room.

As part of the Rhode Island school of design, the Edna Lawrence nature lab isn't there just

to teach art students how to draw.

It's there at least in part to help teach them how to see, how to look at the world with

new eyes.

And what it really does is helps you see what you wouldn't have otherwise seen, to look

at the world with the eyes of a child.

...