REAL AND VIRTUAL PUBLIC VISITS TO FIELD SITES WITH FOSSIL-RICH MARINE INVERTEBRATE ASSEMBLAGES: EVOLUTION THROUGH THE PAST TWO DECADES

An effective way to engage a wide spectrum of individuals from the general public in geoscience learning is through fossil collecting trips that can be attended by all ages. For example, since the 1990s the Paleontological Research Institution has been running trips for the general public to fossil-rich sites of Devonian marine strata in New York State. PRI staff help participants to understand fossils they have found, and, through this, some basic geology and paleontology. Participants range from families with children to serious avocational collectors. Sometimes several generations – children, parents, and grandparents – collect together. Some individuals and families attend for years, improving substantially in knowledge through time.

Over the past decades, however, the availability of sites readily accessible to families has declined, while electronic resources to share information about fossils and sites has expanded enormously. Online “virtual fieldwork experiences” now allow the public to complement (though not replace) their real-world visits with visits to image-rich interactive websites. In some cases our work has made it possible for the public to visit sites that are no longer available, such as certain Neogene sites in California for which museum collections are being digitized for the NSF-funded EPICC project (epiccvfe.berkeley.edu). These sites have become highly developed or made off limits by private landowners, but we can share some aspects the sites and their fossil assemblages electronically. In some cases, specimens from museum research collections can be scanned to create 3-D models that can be observed online and integrated into digital teaching collections.

Selected combinations of traditional and electronic forms of access to field sites, leveraging the strengths of each, may optimize potential educational impacts. Ultimately real-world and electronic experiences will not be perceived as alternatives, but rather as integrated and mutually essential forms of experiencing and understanding the geological record.