Paper No. 362-6
Presentation Time: 9:00 AM-6:30 PM
TIME SCAVENGERS: A COLLABORATIVE WEBSITE FOR EXPLORING CLIMATE CHANGE AND EVOLUTION THROUGH SCIENTISTS’ EXPERIENCES
BAUER, Jennifer E.1, LAM, Adriane R.2, BRYANT, Raquel M.3, FRAASS, Andrew Jeffrey4, GOLDER, Keenan B.1, HARTSHORN, Kyle R.5, HILS, J. Mike6, LIMBECK, Maggie R.1 and SHEFFIELD, Sarah L.1, (1)Earth and Planetary Sciences, The University of Tennessee, 1621 Cumberland Ave, 602 Strong Hall, Knoxville, TN 37996-1410, (2)Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 611 N. Pleasant St, Amherst, MA 01003, (3)Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, (4)Department of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013-7012, (5)Dry Dredgers, 6473 Jayfield Dr, Hamilton, OH 45011, (6)Department of Geology, University of Dayton, Science Center Room 179, 300 College Park, Dayton, OH 45469-2364, jbauer5@vols.utk.edu
Climate change and evolution are subjects that are consistently in the public sphere, though as public acceptance and desire to act on these subjects has increased, misinformation has also increased. Thus, it is critical that scientists engage the public in education about climate change and evolution. Several websites and blogs have attempted to explain climate change and evolution to the public. However, these sites often focus on one aspect of climate change or evolution, and blogs tend to follow the experiences of one scientist in a specific field. Due to these issues, we have created a new website,
TimeScavengers.blog. This novel collaboration is maintained and developed by postdocs, graduate students, and avocational paleontologists across varying fields of paleoclimate, paleoceanography, evolutionary biology, and paleontology. The site is unique in that it brings together multiple scientific disciplines and highlights the experiences of the site collaborators.
Dynamic blog pages include: ‘Meet the Scientist’, dedicated to introduce the public to scientists in many disciplines; ‘Science Bytes’, focusing on research conducted by the site collaborators; ‘Education & Outreach’, highlighting interactions between site collaborators and the public; and ‘Climate & Paleo News’, explaining the relevance of recent important papers in paleoclimate, paleoceanography, or paleontology and how they increase our understanding of climate change and evolution. In addition, the site includes a ‘Teaching Resources’ page with links to other sites with activities related to the content on the website appropriate for K-12 classrooms. The overarching goal of the site is to bridge the gap between scientists and the public through engaging, informational pages and our personal experiences in the field, lab, classroom, and community.
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