Outreach
Where and How?
Our outreach program provides presenters to your classroom to teach your geoscience curriculum, free of charge. Please contact us at [email protected]
The program will be delivered by the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation’s (BSGF’s) guides. Each of our guides has a post secondary degree in earth science. We strive to provide service to schools in the Calgary area, Bragg Creek, Canmore, Banff, Golden, and Kimberley, etc. Additionally we are available to speak anywhere where curious children congregate. Such as: Home School Groups, Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, Brownies, Sparks, Libraries, After-School Care Programs, Day Cares, Summer Camps.
Outreach Purpose:
To help K – 12 educators teach their curriculum. Our presentations are closely aligned with the Planet Earth geology unit of the curriculum.
To promote geoscience, bioscience, and geophysics concepts to school age children.
To generate interest in Earth History and the UNESCO Burgess Shale sites.
To further promote interest in geoscience professions to children.
About the Content:
The Foundation’s Mission Statement is “To promote an understanding of the Earth and how it shapes our lives through interpretation of the Burgess Shale in its geologic setting”.
We will explain the geological and biological significance of the Burgess Shale fossils in the context of the history of life on the planet. The degree of complexity of the presentations will depend on a grade and could be adjusted to address the specific requirements from a school.
The presentations will cover the following topics:
Quick overview of the types of rocks and their formation and deposition.
Concepts of plate tectonics and its application to the building of the Canadian Cordillera with specific focus on the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
Concepts of fossil formation, possible means of preservation, and index fossils.
Geologic time and the significance of the Cambrian Explosion.
The interpretation of scientific ideas, and explanations of fossil records using Burgess Shale Fossils as an example.
Main groups of Burgess Shale animals: Trilobites, Arthropods and Chordates.
Why choose us?
The Foundation has experienced child educators – Professional hiking guides who are Geologists, Geophysicists, Palaeontologists, and Earth-Scientists.
Audience tested, well thought out content that can be adjusted to fit the audience and the teaching objectives.
Props of the following items that the BSGF presenters will bring to the classroom:
minerals – quartz, salt, sulphur, gypsum;
igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks;
fossils – trilobites, brachiopods, ammonites, dinosaur bones, belemnites, etc;
Biologically accurate plastic Burgess Shale animals as well as other key marine representative from later geological times.
Outreach Cost:
There is no charge to have one of our presenters come and and speak.
If you are interested in having one of our presenters speak, please send us an email or give us a call.