David Cordie

Museum Collections: Junk Drawers or Mirrors of Fossil Diversity? part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Are museum collections a perfect reflection of diversity in the past, or are they a junk drawer full of odds and ends that just happen to be collected? The fossil record is the best tool we have for studying ...

Using Project EDDIE modules in From Stones to Bones part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Using Project EDDIE Materials:Instructor Stories
A lot of undergraduate paleontology classes get bogged down with teaching the anatomy of dozens of organisms found in the fossil record. Just focusing on these aspects of paleontology make for a repetitive course that ends up just being about memorization. Instead, this activity focuses on what scientists actually do with the fossils they collected and the state our knowledge base. For example, after the activity, the students were surprised how some museums had very few corals and sponges compared to turtles.