TEACHING PALEOECOLOGY USING EVERYDAY OBJECTS: AN INQUIRY-BASED, HANDS-ON LEARNING EXERCISE IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE ROCKS

Inquiry-based learning is an educational strategy that emphasizes the student role in the learning process by having them propose and test hypotheses through experimentation and/or the collection of observational data. Its use provides students the opportunity to practice skills utilized by professional scientists to discover causal relationships between dependent and independent variables, which ultimately serves to further scientific knowledge in the discipline. Inquiry-based learning emphasizes active participation, allowing students to take ownership of their learning that results in the building of necessary critical thinking and communication skills.

But what do you do when the rocks to conduct these activities aren’t available? Although large surfaces of substrate with encrusting organisms can provide a wealth of paleoecologic information about ancient communities, these large rock slabs are not easy to come by for various reasons. Issues arise when there are no local outcrops for students to visit and/or because previously collected rock slabs are heavy and, because of their size, aren’t easy to transport or store in either academic or museum collections. In fact, the majority of fossil specimens found in these collections are often chipped-down remnants of the outcrop that highlights the organism of interest and removes important paleoecologic data, such as spatial relationships, forever. The exercise that I will present has students create a simulated substrate using nothing more than paper, stickers, and an online random number generator. The goal is that students will be able to develop the skills necessary to improve proficiency in the scientific method and develop an understanding of the application of relevant paleoecologic methods used by scientists in their research.