Down and dirty: Shedding light underground at Chicago's Field Museum

A few years ago, when the staff at the Field Museum in Chicago met to conceive a new permanent exhibit to open in May 1999, the collective mission was to engage the public in a scientific subject normally reserved for the realm of research labs. Called Underground Adventure, the new $10 million, 15,000-sq.-ft. (1,350 sq. m) exhibit would go beyond what we can easily see in nature to a microscopic world living right underneath our feet.

"The challenge the Museum set itself was to find