2014 High School Paleontology Camp

I am pleased to announce an exciting opportunity for High School students (grades 9-12) interested in vertebrate paleontology. I will be leading two sessions of a paleontology youth camp through the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology this summer. These camps will offer an students the opportunity to participate in all the major facets of the work done by vertebrate paleontologists. The first session will run from June 15th through the 20th (SESSION FULL). The second session will run from July 6th through the 11th. Each session includes five days of paleontology activities for up to 16 students.

The geology at Badlands National Park.

The first two days (Monday and Tuesday) will consist of field work in beautiful Badlands National Park. Last year students only got part of a day in the field, but they enjoyed it so much we've expanded it this year. The group will leave from Rapid City on Monday morning and drive out to Interior, South Dakota: the headquarters of Badlands National Park. We will start with a geology tour and stop by the Park's museum and fossil preparation lab. 

Merycoidodon (extinct 'sheep-like' mammal) skull in the
ground discovered by a student during the 2013 camp.

Then we will hike out to an active fossil locality where the participants will learn how to locate, identify, document, and collect vertebrate fossils. This locality is an active research site, so the work the students do here will contribute to ongoing research on the paleofauna of the White River Group. The rocks we will be working with are Eocene and Oligocene in age, dating from about 34 to 32 million years ago. Most of the fossils at these localities are of extinct mammals, but we also find tortoises, alligators, lizards, snakes, and sometimes even bird fossils. Participants will camp out Monday night at the park. On Tuesday we will resume work in the field documenting and collecting specimens. At the end of the day on Tuesday we will pack up and head back to Rapid City for the night. 

2013 participant Theophan Lyman examines
part of a jaw from the White River Group.

Please note, all fossils collected during this camp belong to Badlands National Park (which stores and protects them on behalf of the American people as a part of our national heritage); therefore, participants will not be able to keep any of the fossils we collect. However, the name of the person or persons that find and collect each specimen are recorded and remain associated with that specimen indefinitely, ensuring that everyone gets credit for the discoveries they make and the hard work they contribute. Students will also be credited in any scientific publications that result from this work. Those data and specimens collected during the 2013 camp will soon be published in a paper describing a new fauna from the park, and all students from the camp are individually acknowledged in that report.

One of the beautiful specimens on display
at the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, SD.

On Wednesday the group will head down to Hot Springs, South Dakota to visit the amazing Mammoth Site. This site preserves several well-preserved mammoths in their original positions, and the visitor center is laid out so that people can tour the active dig site and learn about these amazing animals, how they died, and why they were preserved at this site. Participants will also get a special behind the scenes tour of the labs and collections space and learn more about the research done at the Mammoth Site and the important work being done to preserve these specimens for future generations. Participants will also learn how to make molds and cast copies of vertebrate bones and receive their own cast to take home as a souvenir of their visit. We will return back to Rapid City again at the end of the day.

Students work on cleaning fossils in the new Fossil Preparation
Lab on the SDSM&T campus during the 2013 camp.

All day Thursday and the morning on Friday will be spent on the campus of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSM&T) in the new Paleontology Research Laboratory building. We will work in the expansive and state of the art fossil preparation lab where participants will learn how to clean and stabilize fossils for study and long term storage. Participants will learn a variety of techniques for working with large bones, also called macrofossils, and for very small fossils, also called microfossils. Much of the work will be done on fossils that we collect during the field portion of this camp, allowing participants to work from collection, to preparation, to stabilization all on fossils that they themselves discovered. However, if participants want to work on other fossils, we have a large selection of previously collected material that they can choose to work on.

2013 participant Jessie Capotrio works on part of a tail from a
mosasaur, an extinct marine reptile from the Cretaceous.

These camps offer an exceptional opportunity for high school students to not just learn about the field of paleontology, but to actually participate in all the activities a paleontologist does as a part of their job. They will be trained in the exact methods that are used to collect, prepare, and study fossils and learn that, while these activities can require a lot of hard work and dedication, the end result makes it all worthwhile. 

So come and join us this summer in beautiful South Dakota and learn to walk the path of a paleontologist! Registration: 2014 Summer Camps

The 2013 camp participants pose for a photo at the end of a day in the field.