Archive: Arts & Entertainment

The Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) and its Museum of the Earth will be bringing a 380-million-year-old Fossil Dig Pit to the first ever USA Science and Engineering Festival held on the Mall in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, October 23 and Sunday, October 24.  Visitors to the Festival will have the chance to dig through 380-million-year-old shale from the Ithaca area hunting for fossils.

The Central New York area is filled with fossils from the Devonian Period (about 350-400 million years ago), and it’s quite common to find them at parks or in your own backyard.  These fossils can tell us a great deal about what life was like millions of years ago and about the geology of our landscape.

“The Festival is an amazing opportunity for PRI,” says PRI’s Dr. Richard Kissel.  Over two days we expect to meet some 3,000 people of all ages and backgrounds, many of which have never had the opportunity to collect their own fossil.  We are excited to bring our science to them and—we hope—foster that next generation of scientists.  The Festival is just another way PRI reaches people at not just the local but the national level, and what better place than the National Mall!”

v6i41