All through my externship at the Nature Research Center in Raleigh I have had many “aha” moments, from finding interesting shark teeth and identifying interesting shark teeth, to realizing the difference  in teeth arrangement between upper and lower shark jaws, and differences in teeth morphology from the center of the jaw to the back sides of the jaw. It is so interesting and amazing! The form and structure of each tooth is so important in the bite….

But also, as I write the lessons for my students I continue having “aha moments”: As I start thinking on the process of analysis of data after my students collect the data, I think, wow! with this data they can see the importance of graphing dot plots,  creating box plots to analyze distribution and variability in teeth sizes. They can actually apply all they learn in math to the analysis of this data,  and draw conclusions that will help scientists with their research-real world application of math and science! How cool! My 6th graders could even find the MAD (Mean absolute deviation), to see its importance when analyzing information. How cool it is to teach and learn math and science this way.

Throughout all our externship at the Nature Research Center I was thinking on how I would write lessons that would fit with how we teach at our school. We teach through integrated curriculum and project based themes. So I decided to create a whole Case Study, as we usually do at school, where students would be involved in citizen science. It was a big challenge to develop all the lessons for the study and figuring out what would be the best order for those lessons. I started thinking about the order a scientist would take in a research project, and that’s how I started developing the lessons, starting from research and background information, including the study of the site- the Aurora Phosphate mine. From then on, the students would be finding information about shark teeth, and finding them in the sediment, to later identify the teeth, and take measurements. After this, students would analyze their data and draw conclusions, to then publish results. I started getting excited about this whole process and started writing the lessons. The problem is that I came up with a total of 14 days to complete the whole case study, that means, fourteen lessons. I have started writing the lessons, and have done four so far, and now, I know I will be able to complete the lessons for the whole case study. I get so excited thinking on what my students will be doing  and finding when implementing these lessons.    

 

I have learned so many things in these two weeks! So many new things to take back to the classroom; activities that I know my students will enjoy very much. One of those will be finding and identifying shark teeth. When I sit in the Paleo lab with my paper plate containing Aurora sediments from the phosphate mine, and suddenly I find a cool shark tooth, I imagine what my students would feel when doing this and finding cool shark teeth. It’s just amazing how many different shapes and sizes of shark teeth you can find in a short period of time. We will be measuring these shark teeth to then analyze the data collected. I can’t wait to see what my students will come up with from this analysis.

“I am bringing a bucket of sediment to the classroom.” – We have been to the Phosphate mine, so definitely I would have to take them there, too, to see the whole picture of this research project.  It will be a great addition to this project to take them to the mine, and to the Aurora Fossil Museum, as well. They can dig in for shark teeth there, too.

My school was able to purchase a Dino-lite microscope camera, which is an incredible tool when working with shark teeth. It can take very precise measurements of very small shark teeth, and can also take pictures of them. I have gotten better in using it, with the help of Bucky, and will enjoy using it in the classroom.  We can use it, not only for this project, but can also use it with other projects we do at school. For example, seeing the morphology of Shad eggs, when we do our Shad project in the spring, and take pictures of them, and pictures of the whole development process.

I am taking with me a wonderful experience!

When you are a scientist, of course, you have to go to the site being studied,  get familiar with it, and collect samples. That’s what we did yesterday, on this warm, sunny day. Our group and students will be studying distribution of fossil shark teeth at the Aurora Phosphate mine area, therefore , that’s where Bucky, Kerrie, Kimberly, and I were headed yesterday; approximately two hours from Raleigh. And we will visit this place with our students later, when we start our case study.

The Phosphate mine is not open to the public, so we just drove around it, trying to see beyond shrubs and bushes, locating where the drag lines were that shovel out sediment  to extract the phosphate and other chemical substances to later produce phosphoric acid and other products for fertilizers. But us, we are more interested in the sediments that are left from that mining, which is where we will be looking for the shark teeth. Finally, we found a spot where we could get better view of it, and with great excitement of finding that spot, we took pictures.

We could see the huge drag lines at work on the back; they work 24 hours a day.

After that “exciting moment” (that’s the best shot we could get of the mining), we got back into the car and drove to the Aurora Fossil Museum, another interesting place to visit. This museum gets the leftovers of sediment from the dragging out, so we were able to dig in and start   finding shark teeth of all kinds. I found around 32 different ones. This is also the place from where we are getting the sediment for our classes to use. Each of us, teachers, got a bucket full of sediment to take to our school.

It was an interesting and fun experience. My students are becoming scientists, too, so they will be doing this same trip when starting our case study. I hope they enjoy it, and learn from it as much as I did, or even more.

This was a very interesting week; lots of learning happening. Bucky , our mentor, has been great and patient, teaching us about finding and separating fossils from a sample of sediment from the Aurora Phosphate Mine.

From a small sample of sediment in a small box, we started sorting out shark teeth and other items we thought were fossils, just by going slowly through the whole sample of sediment. This was my first time doing something like this, with little prior knowledge of how fossils look like. I felt great though, digging into that small sample. I felt like a scientist! But also realized you have to have good eyesight and experience to sort things out correctly. Being my first time, I felt unsure of what some items were, wondering: is this a fossil or not? I was working with tweezers and a thin paint brush, moving the sediment around, and asking myself, is this a fossil, or not? But I pulled out everything I thought was a fossil. Bucky went through our sorting afterwards checking what we had done. I had a lot of shells or pieces of them, and had missed taking out a few shark teeth. This was a good experience, putting myself as a student, and feeling what a student would go through when doing this. I know I missed identifying several fossils, but seeing what I missed has helped me learn more on what to look for from now on.

The next day, we looked for shark teeth and other fossils in the sediment, but this time using a microscope; a lot easier to sort out and see distinctive shapes. This time (my second time doing this) I felt more confident on what I could identify. There were just a few times I was not sure what I was looking at, but could sort out shark teeth easily. So, after separating shark teeth, and other fossils like vertebra, bone of fish, fish teeth, ray teeth, and others, we went ahead to the next part; identify the shark teeth using an identification sheet , which had pictures of different shark teeth. This was my first time doing this, with no prior knowledge on how to do it. The three of us were matching the tooth with the pictures, which wasn’t easy to do. We were looking at different morphology of the roots and crowns, and their proportions.  We couldn’t tell clearly if it was a tooth from a Lemon Shark or from a Copper Shark. I wasn’t sure we were identifying these correctly, and was less sure when identifying other fossils like bones, using the back if the ID sheet. When thinking on how students would feel doing this activity, I thought they might feel frustrated, But at the same time would enjoy it. It could also be a good activity for them to start looking at shark teeth morphology, shapes, proportions.

We were partly correct with the identification, after Bucky checked on us. But the most important thing he said was that ” it was hard to identify the teeth due to the variability of teeth within species”.

Good activities to do with our students.

This time finding shark teeth using a microscope.