Fossil Hunting

Where are those fossils hiding?

There is one!

This is what we have come here to find.

Yes, you have found one. Good job, girls!

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving I went out with the 6th grade class at Bismarck Middle School to hunt fossils. I volunteered to be part of the Education Renewal Zone (ERZ) program, which partners college professors with public school teachers and their classes. I spend time with my adopted class in the field, in their classrooms, and in my classroom/lab. I purposely chose the 6th graders over high school students because they are still so enthusiastic and excited about learning, even science. If we can get students excited in middle school about science and keep them excited through high school, I might have a chance at having excited freshman biology classes in college. I just felt it was not right for me to gripe about the quality of freshman students we are getting nowadays in our college classes without trying to do something to help.

This 9 weeks the 6th graders are learning about earth science, which is not my specialty. However, we combined earth science with biology and bingo. . . we got fossils. I knew where there were a lot of fossils of marine animals that were just laying on top of the ground and would be easy for the students to find. The kids had a blast and so did I. It was such fun teaching students who had such interest and excitement for the topic. Everyone found fossils to take home; some of them had a bag full of them.

I have to come up with another field trip for them in December, so maybe a show at our campus planetarium. They have a Christmas program revolving around the north star and the winter skies. However, beginning in January it is biology and we have some great stuff lined up from extracting their own DNA to typing blood. I plan on spending some time in their classroom and having them to visit my classroom and lab.