COS 53-1 - The impact of fossil collections for education and outreach: highlighting the potential for newly catalogued paleofloras at Puget Sound Museum of Natural History to understand deep time ecologies

Abstract: The Pacific Northwest has a rich record of fossil plants, with paleofloras that span from the late Mesozoic (~100Ma) through the Cenozoic (recent day). In 2022, the fossil collection (over 11,000 specimens) at the University of Puget Sound (UPS) was cataloged, digitized, and added to the collections of the Puget Sound Museum of Natural History (PSM). The fossil collection database is now accessible for educational activities, and searchable via iDigBio for research, beginning the question: what is the impact of the fossil collection to education and outreach? The fossil collection is used in many avenues of learning – K-12 and undergraduate classroom activities and PSM outreach events. The paleoflora collections are used in multiple undergraduate courses and K-12 classrooms to reconstruct paleoclimate of the Pacific Northwest in a hands-on leaf margin analysis lab. Undergraduate research projects have leveraged the plant fossil collection to reconstruct Washington paleoenvironments during the early Cenozoic. Beyond the classroom, UPS student volunteer docents use the collections to educate the public audiences about natural history through outreach events called, “Night at the Museum.” Docents design and present a set of specimens related to a shared theme. At a recent event focused on Spring, the fossil collection was used to show some of the first flowering plants in Washington.



Undergraduate student engagement allows for interdisciplinary learning at the intersection of biology, geology, and environmental science. Through opportunities in experiential education, undergraduate student interactions with museum specimens enhances both science and non-science curricula. At least 10 UPS courses, ranging from geology to sociology courses, include fossil collections-based activities. Interactions with fossil collections develops an understanding for deep time ecology and how the past can inform the present. The K-12 classroom kit program includes a paleoflora activity of both fossil and herbarium sheets that has the potential of serving as a teaching resource for approximately 1500 students per year in the regional public-school systems. The new addition of the fossil collection to the Puget Sound Museum brings depth to the existing natural history collections, which is an uncommon resource for a primarily undergraduate institution. The fossil collection has seen an increased use by docents for “Night at the Museum” events, which reach 150-400 participants per event. With the newly cataloged and digitized UPS paleontology collection, fossil specimens can easily be used in education and outreach to increase an understanding for deep time perspectives of interactions between life and Earth processes.