There are no words to describe just how incredible and transformative these last three weeks in the Paleo Lab of the Museum of Natural Sciences have been. And my amazing experience this summer is not quite done yet! I have the privilege to accompany Dr. Bucky Gates on a real life paleontology dig in Utah as an extension of my Kenan Fellows experience! I am so excited and thrilled to have been offered this experience that few people could even dream of having… I’m literally going to go DIG UP DINOSAURS!!!
Since the start of my teaching career I’ve know that I wanted to integrate the Arts with the other subjects, but as an art education student training in other disciplines or finding ways to connect between the disciplines was extremely lacking, and especially for true experiences with other professions in other disciplines.
With this ten day adventure in Utah i will get to experience one of the most exciting parts of being a paleontologist- the exploration for and excavation of dinosaurs fossils. And after this experience I hope to have a much better understanding of geology and paleontology, two things that I never imagined I would have expert knowledge in or be able to teach my students about.
It will be very interesting to see what kind of impact that experience will have on me as an Art teacher in a field that most people would think was as far away from the arts as could be.
Our plane leaves tomorrow at 6:00am and I’ll be adventuring for 10 days, so look for my follow up blog post a little after August 3rd. I’ll try to update Twitter with photos and info as much as possible, so make sure to follow for immediate updates!