INEXPENSIVE PALEONTOLOGIC WORKSHOPS FOR TEACHERS

Paleontologists have strong motives to inform the public. Children are fascinated by fossils, and so are many adults. Paleontology gets far more than its share of press – and far less than its share of funding. Labs on fossils can be fun as well as educational. However, in Alabama, many science teachers have no training in geology though they are required to teach it. The need is great, but funds are scarce: Where to begin?

To reach the greatest number of students, we teach the teachers in an annual one-day workshop on fossils in collaboration with local universities (chiefly the University of West Alabama, Livingston, which has a long history of normal education). The workshop focuses on building a classroom kit of specimens collected and labeled by the teachers themselves. Classroom kits are preferable to individual student collections because they do not deplete the supply of fossils as much. To lower anxiety, the announcement emphasizes that no prior training in geology is needed. Before the field trip, we tell teachers how to collect fossils, label specimens, and take field notes. The field trip is popular; we use relatively safe sites that yield an abundant, renewing supply of fossils. After collecting fossils, teachers return to the classroom to sort and identify their treasures with aid from a guidebook and leaders.

The guidebooks are based on two regions of Alabama: Cretaceous chalk of the western Black Belt and Paleozoic rocks of the Tennessee Valley (the latter published as Geological Survey of Alabama Educational Series 13). Topics include the geologic time scale, local stratigraphy, origin and importance of fossils, taphonomy, trace fossils, laws and ethics of collecting, conservation of sites, and references on general and local paleontology. Selected fossils and sites are discussed and illustrated.

Funds come from a group of concerned citizens, who run an annual golf tournament raising a few thousand dollars. By keeping funds in private hands, we achieve some independence of action and even have a surplus that is applied to library donations, fossil digs in sand piles for tots, and so on. One benefit has been the close ties developed with university faculty. Similar workshops can be set up cheaply in other fossiliferous areas. The most expensive part is the cost of preparing accurate and comprehensive guidebooks.