WOOLLY MAMMOTH DISCOVERY ON COLLEGE CAMPUS BENEFITS K-16 PROGRAMS AND BEYOND

The discovery of a woolly mammoth on the campus of Principia College has spawned a range of learning opportunities over a broadening region for K-16 programs and beyond. Students at this four-year liberal arts college, located on the bluffs of the Mississippi River 50 miles north of St. Louis, are participating in the excavation and bone preparation as members of a geology field course that meets an all-college science requirement. Other K-16 programs are enhancing their units on geology or archeology through field trips to our excavation and preparation lab. Background information about mammoths and the Pleistocene Epoch are provided to the teachers through a recommended book list and through our web site (www.prin.edu/mammoth). Students come prepared and are bubbling over with questions for the college students who are excavating bones with bamboo skewers and brushes.

A college class in soils and a professional organization of Quaternary geologists included our site on their field trips to see not only the mammoth remains, but also the excellent exposure of loess in the side of our excavation and samples from our 25-foot auger hole that penetrated the Peoria Silt, Roxana Silt, and two feet of the Sangamon Soil. A geology club from an Illinois university geology department and other geologists and archeologists from the two-state area have also visited.

Schools in other states, including Ohio and Florida, are participating indirectly in our project. Two elementary teachers have taken samples of our matrix for their students to sieve and compare to bog matrix from a mastodon site in New York (see the Mastodon Matrix Project JGE v.51, n.1). The classes watched a video showing (1) some of us applying a plaster jacket to one of our long bones in the field and (2) the lab where bones are at various stages of preparation. A few of these students were able to visit our site with their teachers for a day.

Workshops for teachers are being offered so that teachers can better utilize this authentic research project to excite their students about learning science. I also give talks to groups in the two-state area and beyond; these groups have included an archeological society, an amateur rock club, an AAUW chapter, an Audubon Society chapter, an area Rotary Club, as well as alumni and friends of Principia.