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July 18, 2008

Noble resident experiences Oklahoma Science Adventure

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Noble middle school student Katlin Wallace was one of 12 students from across the state who took part last week in Oklahoma Science Adventure, a weeklong summer field program hosted by the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.

Wallace — who will be a seventh-grader in the fall — worked with museum curators in real field situations, “doing science,” and learning more about the life of working scientists. Like professional scientists in the field, the students were asked to make hypotheses, collect data and draw conclusions based on their findings.

“I think the most important thing I learned was that Oklahoma was a huge lake, which changes how I think of Oklahoma now,” said Wallace. “Also, I got over my fear and held a frog.”

The students conducted field research at two locations in Oklahoma. They began the week at the Rogers County Conservation District in Claremore. There, they worked with museum ichthyology curator Edith Marsh-Matthews on a project in which the students investigated a hypothetical new world filled with unknown species.

After setting nets in two ponds and collecting their catch, the students were asked to sort the fish they had collected by type, name each new species and determine which of the two sites had a greater diversity of species based on their findings.

The students also did some paleontology sleuthing at a site near Perry. There, they investigated an ancient pond bed where, more than 280 million years ago, an assortment of animals left thousands of tracks in a layer of soft dolomite.

Under the direction of vertebrate paleontology curator Richard Cifelli, the students mapped and measured the tracks to learn what they could about the number and types of animals may have made them, and the conditions in which they were made. The students also made charcoal rubbings and plaster casts of some of the prints.

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