How Palaeontologists Work

Activities to try

1. 1

   Lead palaeontologist: run the dig in order

   Why it works: Each step exists for a reason: recording position captures data that vanishes once a fossil is lifted, the right tool protects a fragile specimen, and lab preparation, comparison and publication are what make a find into scientific evidence rather than just an old bone.

   1. Prospect a landscape and choose where to dig — crumbling sedimentary badlands where bones of the right age surface, not granite hills — and say why.
   2. Pick a tool from a tray at a find: try a heavy pick/hammer and observe the fragile bone cracking, then switch to a fine brush and awl and watch the fossil emerge intact.
   3. Before lifting the bone, complete a required recording step — photograph, grid-map and label the bone's position and rock layer in place — and only then proceed to removal.
   4. Once the bone is recorded and exposed on a pedestal of rock, plaster-jacket it in place, then undercut and lift the jacketed block for transport. Next, prepare it in the lab (note that rushing the cleaning strips away fine detail).
   5. Compare the prepared fossil to known skeletons, write a scientific description of it, and submit that description for peer review and publication.
2. 2

   Explore an annotated dig-site scene

   Why it works: Intended to build the vocabulary and mental map of the full workflow and the tools and purpose of each stage, from field to lab to publication.

   1. Move through zones of a labelled scene — field dig → plaster jacket → lab prep bench → study/comparison → publication — and reveal at each what happens and which tool is used.
   2. At the field zone, identify which tools are fine (brush, awl) and which are coarse (hammer, pick), and which belong on delicate bone.
   3. At the lab zone, look at a fossil being cleaned of surrounding rock (matrix) under magnification and describe why this stage matters.
3. 3

   Check: order and justify the workflow

   Why it works: Confirms the learner can both sequence the process — including recording context before removal — and justify the care steps, reasoning about what rushing would destroy.

   1. Put the workflow stages in order: prospect for exposed fossils → carefully expose the bone with small tools and record its position and rock layer (photograph, grid-map, label) → wrap it in a plaster jacket while it still sits on a pedestal of rock → undercut and lift the jacketed block → transport to the lab → prepare and clean in the lab → study and publish.
   2. Match each tool to its task, and explain why a plaster jacket is used (to hold the fragile fossil and its surrounding rock together while it is lifted out and transported).
   3. Answer why recording exactly where and in which rock layer a fossil was found matters before removal.
   4. Explain what could be lost forever if a fossil is dug out carelessly.