Fossil And Artifact School Talk - Looking For Suggestions

[Uncle Siphuncle]

Good idea. I'm sure I can pull nautilus, sloth, sea urchin, mammoth, and other pics off the internet.

[FossilForKids]

Hi Dan!

This sounds great. I've done hundreds of school programs the over the last 6 years and here are some things that never change.

1. Strange is cool = Ammonites....echs...etc

2. Big is cooler = Large ammo bones....anything larger then than it is today. *Use a volunteer to show the difference between those great whale verts you have and their "backbone".....That's usually a hit.

3. Shark Teeth very cool and the bigger the better.....kids seem to really relate to sharks and the fact they've survived for so long.

4. NAL is absolutely right about the dino phenomena (sp). I can send you a couple of large display teeth to show as well as some dino coloring book type pages for them to take home.

5. Slides should be fine but I have never had to use them when I have displays they can see and touch.

I think you'll have a blast but good luck with under 30 minutes especially if you capture their attention. Ialso have tons of giveaway teeth if you want any.

These are just suggestions. I think you plan will work very well.

John

[Xiphactinus]

coprolites are always fun. Especially after passing around the room.

[JohnJ]

A tape measure might be a useful prop when relating size.

[PaleoPutz]

You're going to show 177 photos, and have fossil displays, and have a short presentation in 30 minutes?? I need some management tips from you... It took us 45 minutes to go over the life cycle of a plant. I wish you the best of luck!

[Terry Dactyll]

Danwoehr..... Congratulations on your son being in the 'gifted and talented' group.... no doubt a 'chip off the old block' as they say.... it certainly sounds it reading through your inputs....my daughter is also in 'accelerated learning' in her schooland I have one in University... I know its a nice feeling and to be able to help and inspire them, even better.... what a wonderful idea a talk on fossils, but I think Tracer was right... Its an awful lot of information to cram into a short period, and everyones idea's would enhance what you already have.... I taught in further ED for 10 years, which is a coupler thousand hours class contact time, and I do feel you might end up rushing to fit all your material in....Id suggest you draft something out then try a dummy run on the family... youd be supprised where the time actually goes when your stood up there... ....

[Hawkeye]

I've never done a fossil talk but I've done many, many snake talks for grade schools. I think that you are planning way too much for a simple talk, I know this from experience. My first few times I could see their little eyes glaze over before I got past my introduction. What they like is to be engaged with the speaker. Ask them questions. Who knows what this is? How old do you think this is? How many of you think sharks lived in Texas? Show of hands for anyone who has ever found a fossil, etc. They also love visual aids so the more fossils the better. Remember, they've grown up in an era of 10-second spots, so they have very, very short attention spans.

I think that if your talk is anything like your descriptions of your monthly advertures, they're gonna love you! Wear your gear, wave your arms. The more fun that you yourself have giving the talk, the more they're going to like it. I always used my sons and daughter in my talks when I was at their schools. They became instant celebrities. Bring Weston up front if you can.

[32fordboy]

i used to have some big, green stuffed dino feet shoes with big yellow claws, and soundmakers in them that made loud stomping sounds when i stomped.

not that i should have admitted that.

I used to have a set of those when I was a kid!!! They were the bee's knees.

[tracer]

yeah, an idea's been forming. somebody already mentioned coprolite, but anyway, if you've got a nice big one from NSR, then you could pass it completely around the room, and then show a big picture of a mosasaur, and then tell everyone that what they just handled was poop from that animal, but not to worry, because the germs died off it about 70 million years ago, and then just sort of sit back that evening and giggle about the principal's phone ringing off the wall the next day. so then when they call you about it, tell them you were going to bring your swine fossils instead but they've all been hacking and coughing for a week or so...

if you do this right, they'll probably have to hold the kids all back a year to unlearn what you taught them. just don't tell them that tracer said that there's no gravity, the earth just socks, because that would be wrong.

OMG, i just had a super epiphany! spray paint some coprolites gold and give out "golden ancient poop" ("gap" - for short) awards at the end to the kids who participated the best! (weston and his best friends only, of course.)

wow! i think i'm kinda mean on friday nites. its been a long week.

[Bear]

It is my experience that any such presentation should be kept as simple as possible. I know that it is hard to remember what it is like to be a young child sitting through an adult presentation, but that is the right track to follow - try to put yourself in their shoes.

"Fossils are animals that died a long time ago and turned to stone." is about as deep as I have found practical as an intro. If a young person present wants to know more than that, they will ask. Avoid real big fancy words like the plague.

IMHO, slide shows, photographs, paper handouts etc are vastly more appropriate for a university audience than for young kids. They also find lectures boring. A short, enthusiastic talk with an extended question and answer period will get them much more interested. Science is great fun and finding fossils is exciting - we do not want to put them to sleep.

Megalodon teeth, cheap Moroccan Phacopidae (Drotops Megalomanicaus), dino poop, 'sea shells', leaves and easily recognized arthropods (grasshoppers, shrimp, crabs) are good specimens to pass around. I never take anything too big to pass around and nothing that needs real careful handling either.

Rather than handing out maps detailing area collecting sites and quarries to elementary school kids, consider suggesting they look around the playground dirt and gravel or that they check out the local park or creek bed if you are in an area that may turn up something by way of a fossil. Around here the glacial till has worn Devonian reef stuff in it that little eyes can easily find, despite that the majority of the till is metamorphic in nature. My son even turned up a horn coral specimen on a beach full of metamorphic boulders about 10 minutes after I told him there was no way going to be any fossils there.

Keep it simple.

[Bear]

Oh yeah - drywall installers no longer use those stilts - they were too dangerous. They now use lifts and walking boards on stands.