OEC’s Model Shop is working on two components for the National Museum of Natural History’s new exhibition, Dig It!: The Secrets of Soil — a topographic model showing the layers of soil under the surface and how they affect the land on which we live, and a cast of a tree trunk for the entrance portal of the exhibition.

As an editor, my work is pretty solitary and quiet. I am always amazed and a bit envious when I go back into the shops and see how the people in Fabrication and Model Shop have to work so closely together and how much daily collaboration and communication is needed to just get the job done — and done well.

The time-lapse video below is an extreme example as almost everyone in the shop lent a hand in putting together the fiberglass and rubber mold for the tree trunk cast.

Dig It!: The Secrets of Soil opens July 19.

More photos of the production of the topographical map and tree cast.