What makes a mountain move and grow? How does water shape the land? How do rocks form and change? The 7^th graders at Bryant Middle School have spent the past few months learning the answers to these questions in their Geology unit. Earlier this year, I joined the Natural History Museum of Utah in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument to conduct paleontology fieldwork and help uncover an ~80 million year old dinosaur. I decided to bring my camera and film my week in the field, bringing the field into the classroom for my students that otherwise may not have the opportunity to see and experience what paleontology fieldwork is like. 

After covering the earth's layers, plate tectonic boundaries, and the rock cycle, I taught the students a lesson about fossils. We covered what fossils are, what they can tell us, and how they form. I wanted to teach a lesson that utilized a variety of educational tools, to maximize student engagement. We watched a concise illustrated video covering how fossils form, taking notes as a class on each step of the process. Students utilized critical thinking skills through class discussion, debating the question “is a footprint a fossil?”. They watched a short video I filmed while in the field, giving them a realistic view of what doing paleontology fieldwork is like. The students were also able to express their creativity and imagination in the final activity, in which they utilized NHMU’s ResearchQuest website, which had a dinosaur skeleton simulator that allowed students to test the effects of different shapes and sizes of different bones on survival rates. Overall, the students came away with a deeper understanding of Earth's processes and all that we can learn from the geologic record! 

-Kiri

Last week the SLCSE high school biology students ventured across town to explore a handful of the research taking place here at the U. I tagged along with a group who visited the Puri Lab in the Crocker Science Center. Here students observed how biochemists grow methanotrophs to learn about the role these tiny microorganisms play in Earth’s climate. Later, in the Caron lab, students saw how researchers can train fruit flies and study how their brain perceives odors. They even got to test their own skills by sorting the bitty little fruit flies under a microscope and smell the smells of the fruit flies. These opportunities to see real laboratories and meet active scientists appeared to be very inspiring to a number of students, they asked lots of particularly scientific questions.

The AP Environmental Science students at SLCSE experienced a different sort of field trip. Heading out of the class just across the street they met with some volunteers for the city doing restoration work along the Jordan River. After a successful pop quiz about the importance of using native plants to kickstart an ecological restoration project, students grabbed a pair of gloves and a shovel to compete for the most plants planted over the duration of the class period. Students contributed about 20 plants each to the Jordan River project.

Though quite different from one another, both of these field trips showed students the value of what they learn in the classroom. And, in most of their opinions, it seemed more fun and rewarding than another day in the classroom.

By Ashley Morris

November 11th, 2024