ASSESSING PRE-COLLEGE STUDENT DEVONIAN MARINE PALEONTOLOGICAL DATA FROM A TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

Citizen science engages interested public in scientific data collection, providing an army of foot soldiers to help scientists gather data that would otherwise go uncollected. Close collaborations among scientists, teacher professional development (PD) specialists, teachers, and students provide opportunities for teacher PD that improves teacher and student understanding of inquiry and the nature of science. The NSF-funded Fossil Finders project (DRL 0733233), a collaboration between the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) and education researchers at Cornell U., provides 2 week-long teacher PD workshops to 5 - 9^th teachers from across the nation. Teachers guide their students through data collection from M. Devonian bulk samples from NYS. Students experience scientific practices, working closely with teachers who learned alongside PRI scientists, to identify and measure marine invertebrate (Skaneateles Fm., Hamilton Gp.) fossils and share their findings with PRI scientists through an online database and video conferencing. In 3 years over 10,000 specimens from 10 horizons were recorded by students.

Part of the project is to ascertain to what degree this data can inform actual scientific research. All samples used by students are returned to PRI for curation and future research. Bulk samples were collected at fine stratigraphic resolution from an outcrop with a shallowing upward sequence, with the intention that youth data could provide at least reconnaissance data on assemblage responses to environmental changes not observed at outcrop level. Expert data was collected on selected samples and compared to student data.

Analysis suggests that, at high taxonomic levels, patterns of change in student data on relative abundance and size are similar to those of expert data, despite noise and under-reporting, particularly of small and poorly preserved taxa. Lithological differences appear to affect youth data in that when fewer large taxa are present, smaller taxa are more readily observed and reported. Rock color and fragmentation, while subjective, are fairly well characterized by students. Student measurement of taxa size correlates well with expert data, which is much improved over previous iterations of the project that were not accompanied by teacher PD.