FINDING FOSSILS ON FRIDAY: USING A "GUILD SYSTEM" TO DEVELOP A PEER-TRAINED UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH LABORATORY AND OUTREACH GROUP AT APPALACHIAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Invested faculty, focused projects, and opportunities for students to build skills outside of regular classes are all requirements of successful undergraduate research programs. Microvertebrate projects are therefore ideal because the infrastructure requirements are minimal, but fossils and scientific significance can be plentiful. My voluntary “Finding Fossils on Friday” (FFF) program takes advantage of student down time to host sessions picking fossils from screenwash concentrate. FFF has matured into a group of 6-8 dedicated (and several casual) fossil pickers, and fuels a variety of student research projects, most from field areas some of the students have visited, providing additional student “ownership.”

We operate FFF along a “guild system,” where students begin as informal apprentices to their more advanced peers, then rapidly build paleontology skills by picking first coarse-grained matrix then finer-grained concentrate. Those that demonstrate aptitude, interest, and maturity are offered oversight of a project, which is then the focus of FFF effort until we collect sufficient data and another student project's needs rise to the top of the list. Advanced guild members engage in fossil identification, measurement, sediment processing, heavy liquid separation, image acquisition (using 3-D or scanning electron microscopes), cataloguing, etc. Importantly, our critical mass ensures that almost any technique we use can be peer-taught. The most driven students parlay FFF into paid student research assistantships, independent studies, and senior theses, and present results both on campus and at professional meetings. Some even co-author journal publications.

Because the FFF infrastructure is portable, we take it to regional outreach events at museums and science centers. Our exhibits thus showcase undergraduates performing real research; effectively bridging the gap between ivory tower academia and citizen science by demonstrating paleontological data collection. Students improve their communications skills as they interface with the public. All of this translates well to social media, and we are prominently featured on multiple university web pages. Finally, we also use FFF as a recruiting tool, as promising high school students routinely visit and interact with the FFF crew on campus.