WHAT TO DO WITH TEN 10-YEAR-OLDS IN 10 MINUTES: RESOURCES FOR TEACHING ABOUT PALEORECORDS IN K-12 INFORMAL EDUCATION AND OUTREACH SETTINGS

Scientists are increasingly being called upon to make their research accessible to the public and to share their knowledge and skills in the scientific process with students at all educational levels. Limnogeology and paleolimnology are excellent windows into the scientific process, providing students opportunities to experience and participate in scientific observation and collection of data, explore familiar environments in new ways, and to reach a number of content areas in geology and biology (as well as math, physics, and chemistry) within the context of local and regional lakes familiar to many students. Many excellent programs have been designed to provide undergraduate and graduate students access these experiences through research courses, field courses, undergraduate internships, and similar programs. However, many more opportunities for outreach come through informal requests for laboratory field trip visits, school science fair events, “meet a scientist” museum days, and other brief encounters, often with younger students, and sometimes in relatively large groups. It is critical to provide meaningful, engaging, and memorable experiences in these encounters to foster students’ excitement and curiosity; however, it is a significant challenge to provide a means to explore paleorecords research with short experiences, succinct lessons, and portable tools that can be meaningful and accessible to younger students in the short time afforded by such programs. Here we present several inexpensive, easy to store and transport demonstration tools and brief lesson plans for paleolimnology in informal education settings. Though at times a daunting prospect, making paleolimnological studies accessible to students and the public can be simple and successful. These tools will also be available in a new online educational resource through LacCore (University of Minnesota), where we also invite your submission of successful experiences in paleorecords education in informal educational settings.