Sunday, February 1, 2015

The 'Mobile' Paleobotany Lab: Sycamore Creek Elementary


Welcome to the Sycamore Creek Elementary Science Fair and Expo!!

 This is a classic NC Fossil club table at one of the education events that we are frequently invited to.

 At this table, there is a wide spread of fossils from a diverse set of time periods and ages, as well as a couple of examples of fluorescent minerals (because who doesn't love rocks that glow when you shine purple light on them?)
Many of the fossils were collected by the presenter of the table, with a few casts of the most exceptional fossils in the world for teaching purposes and a couple of modern bones to compare to the fossils. Or, as this presenter said, "I picked it up because I was too impatient to wait for it to fossilize!"
This is Jonathan, a classic long-time member of NCFC who loves a chance to show off his collection, teach kids about invertebrate and vertebrate fossils, and tell stories about 5-year-old finding better fossils than him. Not to mention the coprolites that he pulled my favorite joke on the kids and moms with.

 "What do you think this is? Here, hold it. It's a coprolite. Know what that is? IT'S POOP!" Oh the faces that come from hearing that.

 Aside from the coprolites though, our classic NCFC members always have something to get that "WOW!" face on a kid. See?

 Buuut this wasn't the table I was helping with this time, or else I would have a lot more to say about fossil bones and such as I normally do. Mine was a little bit more non-traditional.


This is Dr. Mickle, my research and class adviser as well as a recently rejoining member of NCFC. He's done tables like this before for schools, but this was my first time helping out. And frankly I don't see other people do this sort of thing often at these events in our field!

 This is our 'mobile lab.' It includes coal balls, cellulose acetate paper, acetone, and 10% HCl that has to be kept away from the kids. "I can touch it. You can't. OK?"

 One mom looked at me when I said this, and exclaimed, "YOU CAN TOUCH IT?!"

"...well Ma'am, it just stings a little if you have an open cut, and my finger tips are the only part of me that makes contact. Its very dilute and its part of the process. That said, we don't want kids touching it or swallowing it just as a liability/responsibility thing!"


Anyway, people don't generally take that much interest in plant fossils. I mean, look at that face as they're looking at the imprint of a leaf and an uncut coal ball. I think it is cool, but I know what it all is! This was what they saw before they got down to us in our 'lab.'

 "How do you reconstruct the plants from these?"

Well... that's where destructive analysis comes in. Time to make some microscope slides!

 As I talked about in a previous post, these are coal ball slices. We were making acetate peels of them just like we did in our PB 545 (paleobotany class) lab a couple of weeks ago.

 Only this time, we had an audience of elementary school aged kids and their parents to amaze as the HCl bubbled in reacting with the calcium carbonate around the plant material, as the acetone turned the plant material white, and as the cellulose acetate paper dissolved into a goop around the plant material, hardened, and was ripped off to form our peels.
There we go. That's the face I was looking for!

 Ooh.

 Aah.

 Bubbles.

 CHEMISTRY!

 SCIENCE!!

 And each kid got to take home a piece of an acetate peel. Fun times!










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My Story (Very briefly...)

Lots of people claim that they wanted to be paleontologists at the age of 3. So did I. The problem is, I never really grew out of it. My third birthday party had dinosaurs. Everywhere. I grew up digging in fossil dirt from Aurora, NC, looking for coral and shark teeth. I practically lived at my local science museums (and still do, only now I get to do research, fossil preparation, and work in collections!) When local paleontologists discovered a dinosaur with a "fossilized heart" (no longer considered such) when I was little, I got to meet the man who led the work. And then, years later a dinosaur bone with soft tissue turned up. I was officially hooked.
No longer was I dreaming about dinosaurs. I was actively pursuing the science behind prehistoric creatures. I didn't want to read about it, I wanted in on the action. So I started working at the museum, and finally going on my own adventures. And thus, I needed a place to share them and maybe inspire others the way I was inspired. I have gone from watching fossils be prepared from one side of the glass at the museum to working on them on the inside of the glass. I am a student working toward my goal. I can finally start to call myself a paleontologist.