PALEONTOLOGY EXPLORATION PROJECT: INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING PROJECT FOCUSING ON TECHNOLOGY AND FIELD-BASED PALEONTOLOGY AND SEDIMENTOLOGY FOR MIDDLE-SCHOOL TEACHERS AND STUDENTS

We report initial results from a multi-year inquiry-based earth science education program entitled Paleontology Exploration Project (PEP). PEP is an inquiry-based NSF program whose goals are to create a “community of learners” to stimulate interest in science and technology at a critical educational stage of school children. PEP involves university geoscience faculty and staff, middle-school teachers, and 7th and 8th grade students recruited from rural eastern Montana communities, including the Rocky's Boy, Fort Belknap, and Fort Peck Indian reservations. PEP is a field-based program that embeds spatial analysis technology with paleontologic and sedimentologic research on Upper Cretaceous sedimentary strata in northeastern Montana. In this project, faculty instruct teachers and then serve as facilitators while teachers work with students and hone their own pedagogical skills. A total of 25 Montana teachers participated in the project; 50 Montana 7th and 8th grade students completed the course.

Prior to the summer activities, two workshops were held to instruct teachers in basic paleontology and technology skills involving ArcView and other GIS techniques. In June 2007, two eight-day field sessions focused on study of the Hell Creek Formation exposed around Fort Peck, Montana. Each session started with three days of teacher orientation regarding local stratigraphy and sedimentology, flora, and fauna, and technology tools available for student projects. These included hand-held GPS and PDA devices, total stations, and a GIS-enabled computer lab. During orientation, teachers worked with faculty and staff to develop four team projects that included an hypothesis, data collection, analysis and interpretation of information, and hypothesis re-evaluation. Project execution with the students consisted of an orientation phase, two days of field data acquisition, a day of data reduction and analysis in the lab, and a formal oral presentation to the entire group. Example projects included characterization of fluvial stratigraphy through section measurement and correlation; sedimentary architectural analysis using total station measurements; characterization of site geomorphology through coupled GPS and GIS analysis; and paleontologic analysis of floral, dinosaur, and terrestrial reptile sites.