SHARK TOOTH FORENSICS: A PALEONTOLOGY CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECT DESIGNED FOR K-12 CLASSROOMS

Public participation in paleontology can be a challenging endeavor, yet is accomplished through preparation of fossils and participation in expeditions after many hours of volunteer training. An even greater challenge exists when one aims to include K-12 students in paleontology with minimal or zero prior experience handling fossils. Combine this with the inherent complexities of a citizen science project and the time constraints of public school classrooms, soon the challenges seem to outweigh the benefits of engineering such an opportunity. However, after four years the project Shark Tooth Forensics shows that paleontology citizen science can exist in public school classrooms with a solid scientific foundation and positive educational outcomes. The research goal behind Shark Tooth Forensics is to determine the structure of ancient shark ecosystems by disentangling taphonomic biases from the preserved ecological signal in fossil marine sites. Whereas prior studies of shark ecosystems focused largely on taxonomic differentiation, Shark Tooth Forensics aims at deciphering the ecology irrespective of taxonomic affinities. Fossil-bearing sediment is sent to classrooms where students microsort the shark teeth. Subsequently, the students measure size and taphonomic features, finally cataloging the specimens for accessioning at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Inclusion of the project within classrooms is made easier by lesson plans that use the data students collected to study curriculum standards in biology, geosciences, and math. Initial results show that students can accurately measure shark teeth using a simplified measurement tool. Additionally, students discover over 75% of shark teeth within their sediment sample, including teeth measuring approximately 1 mm. Qualitative results suggest that university students fared worse at discovering teeth within their samples compared to middle school students. Shark Tooth Forensics is providing the first data of size frequency distributions of Miocene shark localities. Specifically, even though large teeth of Carcharocles megalodon and its relatives are the most famous fossils we find that in at least two localities of the densest concentration of tooth size is between 5 and 7 mm, well below C. megalodon size.