MUSEUMS IN THE FIELD: DEVELOPING STUDENT INTERNS INTO FIELD PALEONTOLOGISTS

All museums are built upon the foundation of their Collections from which all research, educational programming, and exhibit opportunities flow. The museum acts as a repository for representatives of the most important and most interesting parts of the natural world, and it can be argued that a natural history museum best serves its mandate when it reengages the public with nature. This connection is often profoundly expressed in many young children's visceral response to fossils and dinosaurs. Through a student intern program these interested students can be guided on a path of directed self-discovery into becoming professional field paleontologists. The ideal student intern program has a student directly working with museum researchers, with their responsibilities dependant on their natural abilities and interests, but engaged in meaningful projects. In a vertebrate paleontology department, a high school student can be tasked with preparing fossils to gage their technical proficiency and dedication to repetitive, 'boring', small tasks that actually makes up much of real research. Undergraduate students can be introduced to field collecting in the local area where they can learn proper field techniques, etiquette and safety. Senior undergraduates can be assigned a senior project based on their previous work in the laboratory, with the aims being to present their results at a professional conference and then to publish the work in a refereed journal, thus moving them from observers to becoming active participants in their chosen field. If mentored properly, a graduate student's prior experiences will enable them to move from being a student assistant to becoming the manager of their own research project. In the course of their development, they should naturally assume the role of mentor to younger students, thus ensuring the passage of skills and knowledge across generations. Ultimately, the material collected in the field will end up back in the laboratory for preparation, research and display, so that there will always be new discoveries for visitors of every age at the ever evolving museum.