Taphonomy Board Game- College Edition

Lab alumna Anna Weiss and I developed an educational board game about fossilization: "Taphonomy: Dead and Fossilized".  The game is modeled after the Ya Ha Tinda Lagerstätte, an Early Jurassic-aged fossil deposit in Canada. Through competitive play, game players learn about taphonomy (i.e., processes that affect an organism as it fossilizes).

Over the past year and a half, we have been testing the game as an educational activity for colleges and universities. Our paper about the study is now available online (open access) in the Journal of Geoscience Education (Curriculum and Instruction)! The paper describes the learning objectives of the game as well as modifications for your specific classroom needs.

“Taphonomy: Dead and fossilized”: A new board game designed to teach college undergraduate students about the process of fossilization

Rowan C. Martindale & Anna M. Weiss 

https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2019.1693217

Everything you need to play the game and use it as a lab activity can be found here: https://doi.org/10.18738/T8/NQV2CU.

We also have a SERC "Teach the Earth" page about the game: https://serc.carleton.edu/teachearth/activities/231524.html. There is also a "High school version" in the works!

If you want to learn more about the site this game is based on, I gave a public talk about the site at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology. More detail about this and other games can be found here: http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/martindale/paleontological-board-games/

Lab Group Love

Over the years I have had the absolute pleasure to work with some amazing people here at UT Austin. With my first PhD student graduating this year, I thought it would be fun to look at how the lab group has changed over the years!

Martindale Lab 2018/2019 
This year we took the photo during exam week so unfortunately, we are missing half the crew. 

Left to Right: Dr. Drew Muscente (Postdoc), Sean Kacur (Undergraduate honors student), Dr. Rowan Martindale (PI), Dr. Anna Weiss (freshly minted Doctor of Philosophy!)

Martindale Lab 2017/2018

Left to Right: Mackenzie White (Undergrad researcher), Rebecca Ryan (Undergrad researcher), Anna Weiss (PhD Student), Dr. Rowan Martindale (PI), Sean Kacur (Undergrad honors student), Jordan Oefinger (Undergrad researcher), Brooke Bogan  (Undergrad researcher).

Martindale Lab 2016/2017

Left to Right: Dr. Rowan Martindale (PI), Walker Weiss (Undergrad thesis student), Hannah Brame (PhD Student), Kelly Hattori (MSc Student), Anna Weiss (PhD Student), Nick Ettinger (MSc Student), Dr. William Foster (Postdoc).
 

Martindale Lab 2015/2016

Left to Right: Nick Ettinger (MSc Student), Anna Weiss (PhD Student), Selva Marroquín (MSc Student), Dr. Rowan Martindale (PI), Kelly Hattori (MSc Student), Chiara Tornabene (MSc Student), Dr. William Foster (Postdoc).

Educational Board Games!

My Ph.D. Student Anna Weiss and I are developing an educational board game about fossilization. The game is called "Taphonomy: Dead and Fossilized". 

Through competitive play, game players learn about taphonomy (i.e., processes that affect an organism as it fossilizes) and how biology, environment, physical and chemical changes during exposure, burial, and decomposition, as well as discovery biases influence whether or not an organism is collected. Players attempt to preserve the best fossil collection by “time traveling” to the Jurassic; there they protect their specimens from taphonomic factors (either from random environmental events or other players) and learn what processes enhance or diminish preservation. Players then return to the present to recovery their specimens and learn that collection also biases sample recovery.

"Taphonomy: Dead and Fossilized" is modeled after the Ya Ha Tinda Lagerstätte, an Early Jurassic-aged fossil deposit in Canada. If you want to learn more about the site this game is based on, I gave a public talk about the site at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology. Link here: https://findingfossils.blogspot.com/2018/03/RTMP-talk-2018.html

The game was debuted at the 2018 GSA Annual Meeting and is currently being tested in undergraduate classrooms across the United States. For more information, check out the game website here: www.jsg.utexas.edu/martindale/paleontological-board-games/