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| This picture was taken on my third day of my mentorship. Next to me is another volunteer who was helping Dr. Scott clean fossils. Also, the camera was inside an Allosaurus skull replica (if you wondering). |
1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the
person with whom you volunteered.
- Eric Scott, (909) 798 – 8616, San Bernardino County Museum
2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?
- Although Dr. Scott technically doesn’t have a degree in
paleontology (the exact name is gone from my memory), the field he did actually
intend to work in dealt with fossils of ancient hominids (in other words, all
kinds of human species), which is very closely related to what a paleontologist
actually does. Also, he has worked as a Paleontologist since he was a teen and
professionally started at around 1998 when he got the curatorial position at
the San Bernardino County Museum. Overall, his two most outstanding
qualifications as an expert in the field are that he’s had a very long
experience with the work itself and that his field of expertise is within the
realm of what a Paleontologist does.
3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've
completed your summer hours.
- How can paleontology reveal our place as humans among the
multitude of living organisms on our planet?
- How is the knowledge acquired by Paleontologists used to
reveal relationships between entirely different organisms?
- Why is it important to fund the research conducted by
Paleontologists?
4. What is the most important thing you gained from this
experience? Why?
- Overall, my summer mentorship showed me that the work of a
Paleontologist requires the utmost patience because fossil cleaning is tedious
since it is done by scraping millimeter upon millimeter of dirt off a fossil
for hours on end and you have to constantly find ways to reveal complex ideas
to groups of people (in my mentor’s case, children) in ways that do justice to
the ideas, yet are simple enough for the not so well informed to comprehend.
5. What is your senior project topic going to be? How did
mentorship help you make your decision? Please explain.
- My senior project topic is going to continue being Paleontology. My
mentorship convinced of this because my mentor showed me how even the tiniest
bit of information about extinct creatures could fill a room full of children
with wonder and how knowledge about where fossils are likely to come from can
keep eager construction companies from destroying vital pieces of natural
history. Also, my mentorship showed me what really goes on behind the scenes
with Paleontologists, and it was always something that isn’t shown in the
movies, so from my point of view it is exactly what I looked forward to in my
mentorship.
