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/

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/

General Public Talk on Ya Ha Tinda at RTMP

Last week I trekked up to Alberta to give a talk at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology (write up here). I spoke about the exceptional fossils found at Ya Ha Tinda Ranch and how this site can help us understand Oceanic Anoxic Events in the Early Jurassic. The talk was a "general public" talk so it should (hopefully) be easy to understandable for everyone.

Here it is, enjoy!

I also got to (finally) see the display case with the Ya Ha Tinda specimens!

Ya Ha Tinda on Display

This month, the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology is unveiling a new iteration of their "Fossils in Focus" display. This display is an annual exhibit of the new fossil discoveries and research associated with Alberta's fossils and the museum. 

This year several fossils from the Ya Ha Tinda Lagerstätte are on display! 

 A belemnoid with soft tissue, a crinoid, and a fish skull!

Complete with a little blurb and some drawings!

I'm pretty excited, this is the first museum exhibit at the RTMP that I have helped design.

So, if you're in Alberta, stop by the Tyrrell (the whole museum is worth a visit!), and check out your little display.

To read more about these fossils, check out the following papers and news articles: 

• UT Austin Press Release: www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/2017/01/exceptionally-preserved-jurassic-sea-life-found-in-new-fossil-site/
• Calgary Herald Article: http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/rare-jurassic-fossils-found-near-banff.
• Science Daily Article: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170715155134.htm
• Martindale, R.C., Them, T.R. II, Gill, B.C., Marroquín, S.M.*, Knoll, A.H., 2017. A new Early Jurassic fossil Lagerstätte from Ya Ha Tinda, Canada (~183 Ma). Geology, March 2017, 45, 255-258.
• Martindale, R.C. and Aberhan, M. 2017. Response of macrobenthic communities to the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event in northeastern Panthalassa (Ya Ha Tinda, Alberta, Canada). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 478, 103–120.
• Maxwell, E.E., and Martindale, R.C. 2017. New Saurorhynchus (Actinopterygii: Saurichthyidae) material from the Early Jurassic of Alberta, Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 54(7), 714-719