"Is it true that we are really all made of the stars?"
This is the question posed to Macquarie University's Biology Discovery Centre curator Libby Eyre, by a five-year-old child during a public tour of the collection.
Filled with native and critically endangered Australian animals, corals, shells, skulls, skeletons, and even a dinosaur casting, the Discovery Centre offers a rare opportunity to stand face to face with the natural world - where curiosity and mortality coexist.
While maintaining such a collection is no simple task, for Eyre, the museum's significance reaches far beyond preservation alone.
"It is a lot of work, but I also really love it," says Eyre.
"It can also be challenging having museums, because, with the fast pace of life, social media, and opinions, people have become more cynical.
"But I think the place is there to remove people from their screens and to see objects that they can get up close to. You can look at the Wallabies, and you can see the Cassowary's feathers and remnants of wings.
"From there, you can think about our place in our responsibility in protecting the environment."
The Discovery Centre offers a rare opportunity to stand face to face with the natural world. Image: Elaine Obran
Inside the museum, the instinct to scroll through notifications feels strangely misplaced, perhaps even sacrilegious.
Instead, visitors move slowly between cabinets of insects and sleeping marsupials frozen in time beneath glass.
The silence is occasionally interrupted by hushed reactions, quiet gasps, whispered "oh my gods," as people encounter the collection up close. In these moments, the museum becomes less about spectacle and more about reflection: an invitation to consider humanity's relationship with the ecosystems surrounding us.
For Eyre, it's one that is becoming increasingly fragile.
"Throughout the ages, humans have been isolating themselves from animals, thinking we're something else, but we're not. We are part of this whole system. We're part of that diversity of life, and we need that diversity of life.
"If you move online, if you forget the whole organism and its part in that ecosystem, then you're missing out on that big picture. We are very small, and life is very fragile."
That awareness is also what makes the work emotionally confronting at times. Among the museum's displays are species whose futures have become uncertain, or in some cases extinct even within Eyre's own lifetime.
"I find it sad," says Eyre.
"Humans don't have very long lifespans, but we do a lot during them. You can look at an animal like a koala that's here, they're now endangered, the same as the Tasmanian devil, which is critically endangered.
Species on display at the Discovery Centre include Koalas, which are now critically endangered. Image: Elaine Obran
"But even though it's sad to see so many dead, beautiful beings in one place, it's important to make the most of it with research as well and to educate people.
This feeling of purpose continues to drive Eyre - not only in caring for the space, but in opening it to more visitors, something she hopes will continue to grow momentum into the future.
"This is an important part of the Macquarie University institution," reflects Eyre.
"It's part of its history, and part of its culture. It can be a hidden space that often people discover on their last day, so I would love more people to book a tour or just simply wander through."
Visitors can move slowly between cabinets of insects and sleeping marsupials frozen in time beneath glass. Image: Elaine Obran
Whether visited between lectures or during a quiet moment in the day, the museum offers us a chance to sit with questions that can't be answered by a screen alone.
"The space also asks us to find the beauty. Even though they're not alive anymore, they still preserve that form, function, and diversity," says. Eyre.
"Once you start to question, you then want to find answers."
And perhaps that is what lingers most after leaving the Discovery Centre, a childlike sense of wonder and curiosity, that can be carried forward the next time someone looks up at the night sky and asks, "are we really made from the stars?"
The Centre is open to everyone, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm at the 6 Science Road (formerly E8B) room 110. For more information, inquiries, or to plan your visit, contact: [email protected] or visit https://www.mq.edu.au/
