Getting into our Shark Teeth Roles
Today was a big day. Maybe it was seeing mind-blowing fossils and fossil casts first thing in the morning. Maybe it was the camaraderie our team has established already. Maybe it was the 10 straight days of professional treatment. I don’t know. But today was a big day for me.
Here’s a few reasons I can identify so far:
1. Our team consists of 4 really amazing people. I don’t like the word ‘expert’, but each person on our team brings some really major boss-level knowledge and skills to the table. We are all learning from each other – be it teaching style, patience, creativity, content focus, content knowledge….you name it, we got it. In addition, I am enjoying being ignorant to the information others possess. I can count at least three times today that I recognized my own understanding being changed though our work.
2. I had some breakthroughs on my understanding of our project goals (short term, and long term). Some of these goals get to the root of citizen science itself, some are more related to the shark teeth project, but I am really beginning to wrap my head around what we want to accomplish over this year and how we may want to extend it into the future. Getting to talk at length with last year’s team helped clarify their idea for the project and our directions for this year. I am not sure that I can put them into words yet – they are not fully formed – but they are so much clearer than before.
3. We picked up some awesome information. Early in the day we got a deeper tour of the paleo lab from Dr. Zanno. It is amazing what is sitting in there. We held the fossilized claw of a Falcarius, an early herbivorous Therizinosaur (its actually a finger-like bone – the claw would have covered and extended off the bone). We also got to see the same bones of another Therizinosaur. These things were massive and there would have been three per hand. To think that nail-like claws would have extended even farther off the bone? Wow. On an herbivore? We also got a thought- and question-provoking geology lesson from Bucky and got to analyze more shark jaws (bonnethead sharks, people!)
4. Rounding out the evening, we continued conversations on how amazing this program truly is. I really believe that the next wave of Education Leadership is forming in these last few years of Kenan Fellows.
5. Shameless plug..If you’re not already following all the Team Shark blogs (Sifting Through Shark Teeth and Forensic Sharkventure) you really should. In addition, any and all of the 2015-2016 Kenan Fellows Project blogs are cool ways to see what’s going on with us.