PaleoBlitz: Promoting Best Practices in Paleontology Victor Perez, Ronny Leder, Lisa Lundgren, Shari Ellis, Betty Dunckel victorjperez@ufl.edu; leder.ronnymaik@flmnh.ufl.edu Project Origin PaleoBlitz Overview Outcomes & Outputs Application: Baseline & Motivation (N=25) The FOSSIL Project team joined amateur paleontology clubs for a collecting field trip to Belgrade Quarry in North Carolina Amateur paleontologists from throughout the U.S. were invited to participate in a two-day PaleoBlitz, in which participants would catalog fossils from Belgrade Participants were strategically chosen to include ‘experts’ and ‘novices’ to facilitate mentor-mentee relationships Day 1: Activity Purpose Collections tour at Florida Museum of Natural History Understand how specimens are organized in a professional collection Introduction to myFossil website with focus on fossil digitization tutorial (community.myfossil.org) Make participants aware of online resources for organizing and documenting their personal collections Curation Stations: Fossil identification, documentation, and curation Reinforce the types of data that should be recorded when collecting fossils Wrap-up Discussion Allow participants to share takeaways from the day, provide feedback, and reinforce key concepts Figure 2. Participants ranked their knowledge regarding the museum curation process on a 7-point scale from very low to very high. Figure 3. Applicants’ motivation for collecting fossils. PostBlitz Questionnaire: Immediate Outcome (N=13) Figure 4. Participants self-perceived confidence with the museum curation process after the PaleoBlitz. Objectives Promote Best Practices: Educate participants about the entire museum curation process, from recording field data to digitizing and curating a collection. Support the Practice of Paleontology: Understand what motivates and supports individuals in the practice of paleontology. Refine PaleoBlitz Design: Refine the structure of the PaleoBlitz through participant feedback and staff observations. Day 2: Activity Purpose Collections tour of Gordon Hubbell’s personal collection See how to optimally display and organize a personal collection Collecting field trip to Possum Creek in Gainesville, Florida Provide participants with the opportunity to implement best practices discussed Wrap-up Discussion Allow participants to share takeaways from the day, provide feedback, and reinforce key concepts PostBlitz Questionnaire Understand participant content gains, anticipated changes in practice, and suggestions for improving the PaleoBlitz Delayed Questionnaire (2 months after): Outcomes & Outputs (N=13) Research Design Figure 5. Changes in practice after the PaleoBlitz. Figure 7. Social network graph of myFossil. Participants in orange. Figure 6. Participant outputs after the PaleoBlitz. Figure 1. Three iterations of data collection with their intended goals and outcomes.