FossilSketch: Identify and analyze microfossils for environmental interpretation
Summary
In these activities, students use the web-based application, FossilSketch, to learn the morphological characteristics necessary to identify benthic foraminifera and ostracoda fossils, practice their identification skills, and apply microfossil identifications to reconstruct past paleoenvironments from paleontological records. Development of FossilSketch was funded by NSF# 1937827 (PI: Tracy Hammond, co-PIs: Christina Belanger, Anna Stepanova, Christine Stanley, Sara Raven).
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Context
Audience
FossilSketch is customizable by the instructor (please request a code at https://fossilsketch.org) to be appropriate for an upper-level undergraduate paleontology course, lower-level undergraduate Earth history course, or a non-majors course in Earth systems or environmental science. It can also be used to support training undergraduate and graduate students doing research with foraminifera or ostracoda.
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered
Students should watch the informational videos embedded in FossilSketch prior to beginning the exercise in the classroom or laboratory session. It is helpful if they already understand basic taxonomic concepts (ex. the levels of the taxonomic hierarchy and that morphological characters can be used to identify species) and are aware that fossils and sedimentary records can be used to reconstruct past environments.
How the activity is situated in the course
The upper-level college activity is used as a laboratory exercise in paleontology course for geology majors where it is the third laboratory activity they do. The lower-level college activity has been used in a non-majors Earth history course and is one of the last laboratory activities they do after learning about Cenozoic climates.
Goals
Content/concepts goals for this activity
The goal of the activity is to provide students with experience identifying fossils in an assemblage for paleoenvironmental analyses. After completing the activity, they should have an understanding of the process used to identify a specimen to genus (or morphotype) and of how the relative abundance of genera (or morphotypes) with known modern environmental preferences can be used to infer past environmental conditions. The current assemblage exercises in FossilSketch are focused on paleoenvironmental interpretations of oxygenation (benthic foraminifera) and salinity (ostracods).
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
Students are expected to collect and analyze data to test hypotheses about environmental change. They are also asked for formulate hypotheses based upon information given to them.
Other skills goals for this activity
Description and Teaching Materials
The FossilSketch application is available at https://fossilsketch.org. To request an instructor code that allows you to customize the modules your students can see and to access the instructor interface that allows you to see student scores and usage, please request a code using the link on the FossilSketch homepage. To simply use FossilSketch "as is" with all modules visible to the student you may use:
Username: test02@test.com
Password: testing02
The attached supporting materials include:
"Student Handout for Reconstructing Environments with Microfossils", which is intended for lower division college courses serving students who are not geology majors. This version may also be appropriate for high school level instruction.
"Student handout for Microfossils and Paleoenvironmental Interpretation", which is intended for upper division geology students in a paleontology course. This version may also be appropriate for beginning graduate students.
"Instructor Notes" discusses customization an instructor may want to do within FossilSketch.
Student Handout for Reconstructing Environments with Microfossils (College Lower) (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 20kB Jul9 23)
Student Handout for Microfossils and Paleoenvironmental Interpretation (College Upper) (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 718kB Jul9 23)
Instructor Notes (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 18kB Jul9 23)
Teaching Notes and Tips
Please see the file "Instructor Notes" for some tips on how to customize FossilSketch for the activities you choose.
Assessment
College Lower: Students are assessed based on their responses to the open ended questions with the primary weight on their ability to use evidence to support a claim and to pose well-reasoned hypotheses about biotic responses to environmental change and paleoenviornmental interpretation.
College Upper: In laboratory quizzes and/or the laboratory practical, students are asked to describe the procedure for identifying a microfossil to genus. Students are also given a "mystery fossil" to identify and are assessed on the accuracy in determining the morphological characteristics of the fossil and the completeness of the process they use, as well as the correctness of their identification. Their written responses to the synthetic hypothesis questions are used to assess if they understand paleoenvironmental interpretation.