High school students are stepping into the prehistoric past by unearthing and learning about dinosaur fossils dating 150 million years through an Oklahoma program aiming to make science fun for students of all ages.
While immersed in excavation sites across the region, students in ninth through 11th grade dig side-by-side with working paleontologists through the ExplorOlogy Paleo Expedition Program, Jes Cole, head of education at the Sam Noble Museum, said. The educational outreach program was launched in 2007 as a partnership between the museum and the Whitten-Newman Foundation.
“We started with dinosaurs because it was something that not only Oklahoma had but kids were just really interested in,” Cole said. “The whole idea is that we want students to really become the scientists and have a chance to explore the world the same way as scientists do.”
Every summer, 12 students and several professionals from the Sam Noble Museum and the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences venture to new locations with hopes of discovering new finds, making new friends and learning more about paleontology, she said. All fossils found are put in the museum's collection for research.
Dig site purchased
Last year, Reggie Whitten, ExplorOlogy co-founder, purchased land at Black Mesa State Park to be used as a regular dig site for the program, he said.
“Some of the most famous dinosaurs in the world are down there at Sam Noble Museum, but we're going to put some more down there and they're going to come from here (Black Mesa), and they're going to be dug up by Oklahoma kids,” Whitten said. “Now that is cool.”
The site at Black Mesa, referred to as the Homestead Quarry, is close to the quarries previously discovered by the Sam Noble Museum's first director, J. Willis Stovall, in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
The Homestead site serves as the first professional quarry work in the area since before World War II. That is exciting for the students, Whitten said.
Anne Weil, research associate at the Sam Noble Museum and associate professor at OSU-CHS, has worked as a paleontologist for 20 years, digging at various locations around the country, she said. The site at Black Mesa is distinctive to her because of it serves science and education.
“Everyone who works on this site is participating in a real scientific endeavor,” Weil said. “It's very worthwhile. You're really enriching people's understanding of what science is.”
Gray McCutchen, Edmond Memorial High School junior, has been involved in the Sam Noble Museum's educational programs for as long as he can remember, he said.
McCutchen, 17, participated in the 2012 ExplorOlogy Paleo Expedition and was one of the first students to dig at Black Mesa.
“It was really cool. Like this was alive so many years ago, and you get to hold it in your hand,” he said.
He returned to the site this year as a peer mentor and is now working toward a degree in paleontology.
“Before, I kind of wanted to be in paleontology but I was a little skeptical on how it would be, and this has just reaffirmed that this is definitely what I want to do,” he said.
College students involved
The 2012 expedition at Black Mesa also included students in Native Explorers, a program that recruits, trains and educates American Indian college students in science and medicine, Whitten said. Native Explorers was founded in 2009 and is also funded by the Whitten-Newman Foundation.
Brandie MacDonald, 30, is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation and Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and has been involved in Native Explorers for the past two years. MacDonald was also one of the first students to excavate fossils at Black Mesa. Before her involvement in the program, she had never participated in paleontology digs.
“It made me see the connection of science and all of the other fields. It just showed how science and art and culture is just all inherently connected,” she said.
MacDonald said she is now using the valuable connections made through Native Explorers in her current position as the museum educator at The Heritage Center at the Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
The 15-day summer adventure at Black Mesa and various other sites is only a small part of ExplorOlogy, said Cole, of the Sam Noble Museum. Since its inception, the program has served 53,000 students, from 150 schools in 52 Oklahoma counties. Other programs include field research, lectures and hands-on programs for students. Cole said the mission of the program is to inspire students to believe in themselves.
“For us it's really exciting just to help these kids tap into their dreams and helping them make it a reality,” she said.