TIME YOU CAN TOUCH, OR THE NEED FOR INTEGRATING FOSSIL AND MUSEUM COLLECTIONS INTO INTRODUCTORY EARTH HISTORY COURSES FOR NON-SCIENCE MAJORS

One of the most difficult subjects for a student of any age to grasp is the immensity of geologic time and the relative position of the human species within it – and yet without these scales, the true impact of modern human activity on the environment remains abstract and easily dismissed. Fossil specimens, particularly from places relevant to student interests (whether a culturally relevant location or their own hometown), provide a tangible link from the observable present to an inferred past. Teaching using these fossils engages non-science students and provides them with a context and frame of reference they can (sometimes literally) hold onto when encountering more complex concepts. At the College of Charleston, a series of introductory geology laboratory exercises using available fossil specimens have been designed specifically to be accessible and engaging to non-science majors.

The introductory labs include museum-based exploration of the College of Charleston’s Mace Brown Museum of Natural History, which allows for a global and a local perspective on geologic history. The museum is visited throughout the course whenever relevant, providing physical links to intangible concepts. For example, Australian Glossopteris fossils are used during a paleogeography exercise; whale, mammoth, and megalodon fossils during lab exercises on the local history of climate and sea level change; human skeletal material is compared to tetrapod skeletal material, both from fellow primates and hominins in the human evolution lab, and from further flung vertebrate relatives in the tetrapod evolution and museum labs. All of these concrete specimens provide a concrete context for students to grasp and build upon, and helps them identify and analyze patterns and relationships, rather than imparting minutiae of facts to memorize.

As many of the students of these labs will go on not to become scientists, but lawmakers, economists, teachers, and of course, voters, reaching them during what may be the last science course of their lives and imparting an understanding of deep time and human context within it is of vital importance. The incorporation of fossils from key places and times provides these students a firm stepping stone from the abstract to the concrete.