Interests in paleontology can range from collecting seashells, rocks and minerals to more biological fossils like shark teeth and prehistoric bones. What sets the FGCU Paleontology Club apart is its hands-on approach to learning. Members don’t just read about Earth’s history, they dig into it – literally.
The club has only been active for a year under the leadership of Dr. Harry Maisch and the club’s president, senior Caleigh Merrill. Students share an interest in collecting fossils and other various specimens from our Earth’s history.
Maisch explains that a very important aspect of the club is to teach students identification skills and watch them be able to help and teach each other without his guidance.
“If I’m not around, some of the other club members, they’re upperclassmen, they know what’s what and if they don’t know, they could also just ask me,” Maisch said.
This is best done when the club can travel off campus to observe these specimens naturally. They can collect on their own or gain service-learning hours by helping Maisch.
“At one point they brought in some sediment that we collected in the field and some of the club members were helpful to go through that sediment looking for small sharks’ teeth and other fossils,” Maisch said. “I’m always looking for help in the lab.”
He encourages students to work with him to earn service-learning hours as well as learn a new skill. Through activities like fossil identification and sediment analysis, students develop critical thinking and observational skills that are valuable in fields beyond paleontology, from environmental science to forensics.
Since the first club meetings, there have been multiple field trips to locations such as Venice Beach and Peace River for club members to find fossils themselves and learn how to easily identify and analyze them. However, the weather during the fall semester was not ideal, preventing them from collecting as many fossils as they would’ve liked.
“Collecting this semester has been rough just because the water levels have been high from all the storms, we haven’t really been able to get out that much,” Merrill said.
Despite the lack of trips last semester due to multiple weather phenomena, the paleontology club plans to return to its normal pace of field trips this semester.
The paleontology club is for any student to join. It is not major specific and anyone who is interested is strongly encouraged to attend. Merrill is a marine science major, but she and many others are guided by their passions.
“I actually ended up getting a minor in geology because of this. I really like sharks and want to focus on sharks,” Merrill said. “Fossils and their teeth is all we have to study them so it’s nice to learn evolutionary history through their teeth and how they evolved over time.”
The Paleontology Club is a small club that is just getting started and in need of more members. Merrill urges FGCU students with the slightest interest in paleontology, geology, marine science, or even just nature to join their club. Upcoming information and events for the paleontology club can be found on Eagle Link.
