workshop in paint

2012 Trace-Fossil workshop

or

playing in paint

Yesterday morning I got up at five o'clock to drive to North Alabama to do a trace-fossil workshop for teachers. By "drive," I mean "beat driven by." Yes, I have a chauffeur wherever I go. Too bad I don't have the Bentley that usually goes with it. So Doug, Doris, and I drove up to Camp McDowell, an episcopal nature camp in rural north-central Alabama. We taught members of the Environmental Education Association of Alabama, mostly if not entirely K-12 teachers, about tracks, fossil tracks, what you can learn from them, and how to have fun with students in the process. I didn't invent this activity; I slightly adapted it for my own purposes. We had 19 students and everybody had fun. 17 of the 19 people took off their shoes and socks, stepped in paint, and walked on long strips of paper. I consider that an achievement, considering that it was only in 50s outside and that's where we did that. We measured foot length, both measured and calculated leg length, measured stride length, used an empirically derived formula, and figured out how fast people were walking. The only thing we lacked was a stopwatch to determine whether our walking-rate calculation was accurate. Maybe next time. I heard a number of people say their students would really enjoy the activity, so I know we achieved our primary objective.

We also gave away plant fossils (we were under strict instructions to do so) and various publications (like posters and postcards). We didn't have time to go on the afternoon field trip, and I was afraid I would not make it up a steep slope at the outcrop, because of the previous night's torrential downpour. Maybe next time for that too.

I would write more, but I have a lot of things to try to accomplish today before I get back to reading Spook Country, by William Gibson.