PALAEONTOLOGY AND EDUCATION: CANADA’S OLDEST DINOSAUR

The Fundy Geological Museum (Parrsboro, NS) is encouraging public and high school students across Canada to watch as staff uncover the skeleton of a prosauropod dinosaur. The Project Prosauropod web page (http://museum.gov.ns.ca/fgm/lab/lab.html) is updated once a week and provides students with photographs, video, and text describing the latest discoveries made in the research lab. Students are encouraged to email researchers questions, and the answers are posted in the next week’s update.

The Project Prosauropod web page provides unprecedented access to the time consuming task of fossil preparation, while exposing students to fundamental concepts of geology and palaeontology. The program is being used across Canada and is of tremendous value to teachers in remote communities typically unable to take class trips to museums. Project Prosauropod is unique in its detailed and long-term commitment to provide visitors access to the research work occurring in a museum.

The Fundy Geological Museum has partnered with corporate sponsors, government programs and foundations to fund this ambitious program. Content use and presentation effectiveness are constantly evaluated using web statistics and visitor comments, and are used to improve program effectiveness. Training staff for basic web page construction has been an extremely effective way to expand the museum’s visitor base and staff-visitor interactions. Providing an interesting “virtual” Museum plays an important role in increasing gallery visitation, revenue generation, program delivery and public awareness.

As the world wide web is increasingly incorporated into classroom learning, Project Prosauropod demonstrates that museums can expand their impact base by using the web to present exhibits and programs. Regularly (weekly) content updates and quality educational information are of paramount importance to this successful program.