As paleontology neared the end, students were able to demonstrate what they learned throughout the course by designing research experiments. These projects focused on a wide array of paleontological methods and topics including excavation, tooth wear, and how an animal's chewing rate correlates with its body size. The students worked quite hard on these projects [...]
Origins Field School students don’t have to worry about what's for dinner, as we are provided with healthy and delicious food every day. But what is on the menu for other animals? How can we use them to infer the diet of their fossil relatives?
Where does the world come from is one of the most fascinating questions people have asked for thousands of years. Needless to say, the Earth came a long way before it took the shape that we can recognize today. How do we know about major Earth history events such as splitting up of continents, appearance [...]
In the Geology module of the Origins field school, student learned about the earth’s history and how this history is recorded in the layers of sediment in the Turkana Basin. Now it is time to decipher the enigma of different plants and animals that lived in the history of the Turkana Basin millions of years [...]
To put their geology skills to the test, students set out to make a geological map of area 1, which is near our home in Ileret. This map not only included essential features such as a key, a compass showing where north is, and a scale, but also important geological features including tuffs, ancient river [...]
In our last episode of geologic endeavor, students learned about the two dominating sedimentary systems of the Turkana Basin: the river system and the lake system. They are the integral forces that laid down layers of rocks in the basin, together with important fossils of early mammals and hominins. To understand the differences between the [...]
Our first module came to an end, which unfortunately meant it was time to say goodbye to Dino and his adorable field assistant Barabara. Ecology has set the stage for the rest of the Origins Field School, especially our next adventure, geology. Geological processes that have formed our current ecology have not changed throughout time. Thus [...]
We are now in Ileret, which is on the east side of Lake Turkana. We will be here for 7 weeks of the field school! Map of Lake Turkana. Ileret is on the northeastern side of the lake. Student dorms at TBI Ileret. Photo credit Deming Yang. TA Laura pretending [...]