Before I get into what I will be doing in Canada and the first initiative I am working on, a quick background about what a Fulbright is. Fulbright is an international exchange program which sends US students and scholars to various nations (and vice versa) across the continents to conduct research relevant to the participating nations, to teach English to non-native speakers, to foster shared artistic expression, but more importantly, to promote cultural exchange and understanding between the United States and the countries of the world. Members of the Fulbright community serve as 'citizen ambassadors'. If you want the full history of the Fulbright I will direct you to the Fulbright page however I do want to highlight this one quote from their site.
"The program currently awards approximately 1,900 grants annually in all fields of study, and operates in more than 140 countries worldwide. Fulbright U.S. Student alumni populate a range of professions and include ambassadors, members of Congress, judges, heads of corporations, university presidents, journalists, artists, professors, and teachers."
For my Fulbright (which I am still in shock about) I will be spending the next academic year working with Dr. Andre Desrochers at the University of Ottawa, to look at the Late Ordovician (Katian; Richmondian) strata of Southern Ontario in attempts to compare it to coeval strata here along the Cincinnati Arch. The hope is to ultimately be able to compare patterns in change of sea level, climate and biotic communities between these two regions as part of larger project which will look at the same interval in Europe as well.
Now as I mentioned earlier, the Fulbright is not only about conducting the research, but also about fostering this cultural exchange and understanding through interaction with the greater Canadian community. I have a multitude of ideas at to how I would like to do this, and first initiative or project related to this requires help from all of you!
A lot of what I will be doing (planned anyways) during the Fulbright will be to give presentations on the Ordovician to schools, universities, local organizations and museums. To enhance my presentations, I am working on constructing 'mobile teaching sets' which highlight the wonderful Ordovician fossils of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Ideally these sets would have representations of as many different genera possible. Now to do this, I obviously need the fossils to display in bring with me, that is the first way you all can help me out.
How can I help?
I am looking for people who are willing to donate Upper Ordovician (Edenian-Richmondian) fossils from the Cincinnati Arch to this collection. Ideally these fossils would be of some decent quality in the sense they represent the taxa well. Some taxa (like Platystrophia ponderosa, Cincinnetina, Hebertella, etc) are pretty easy for me to find and collect, however some of the more rare taxa (various trilobites, echinoderms, less common brachiopods) are much more difficult. I already a number of donations being offered from the wonderful members of the Dry Dredgers and if any of you are willing to contribute in this way I encourage you to contact me with what you might donate so we can see where the need is!If you think this project is a great idea but can't contribute any fossils because you don't live nearby and don't have any, or because you are attached to the ones you have (trust me I understand) or whatever the reason might be, there is another way you could help. As with basically any project, creating these mobile teaching sets will require some funding to purchase display boxes, generate information cards etc. To that end, I have set up a FundMe Campaign where people can donate to this outreach project.
I greatly appreciate anything you might be able to do to help, with it be fossils, money, spreading the word, or however you choose to help. Any extra fossils or money beyond what is needed for these displays, will be applied to other outreach initiatives including small 'fossil kits' which can be mailed to kids and teachers, development of Ordovician related creative products (stories, photo books) and more!
That is way too much text for one post, thanks for reading this and I hope you'll keep coming back to share my Fulbright experience, one that has been 450 million years in the making!
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