This week I went to the museum for 1 3/4 hours, and I got to act as a tour guide for a group of students from Bay Area Montessori House, the elementary school I attended.This was a bunch of fun because the group was very into dinosaurs and Dimetrodons. To start I walked them through the Permian section of the Paleontology Hall. There I got to share my knowledge of how to tell an amphibian skull, the dimples; how they originally dug for Dimetrodons in the Texas Red Beds, with dynamite; how they found the Judy Block, with a backhoe; and who Willy is, the HMNS Dimetrodon. Then we walked through the Dinosaur section of the hall, which they thoroughly enjoyed. After that I got to do something really cool; which was to take them down to the lab, with David's permission, for a behind-the-scenes-tour. There I got to show them a very special Diplocaulus, Boomerang Head, specimen as well as the Jane jackets that I've worked on. They also got to see another volunteer working on a specimen with one of the air scribes, and look as some coprolites, fossilized poop.
I really enjoyed getting to teach some kids about what I do, especially ones that go to the school that I went to. I know technically I'm not that old in the field of Paleontology, but it's still really cool to be able to teach people who are younger than you about what you do.
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