This week I went to an elementary school to show off my fossils to a couple of groups of kids. I used fossils from my own collections and some of my friends. It made me realize that sometimes the fossils you collect for coolness are not necessarily the best for educational resources. In other words if I was to collect fossils for educational reasons I would definitely want some plant fossils, amber, tracks or coprolites and a modern longbone.
I'm sadly lacking in plant material, not counting my petrified wood. Amber is an important way things fossilize. My most obvious modern bone, other then skulls, is a moose vertebra which quite a few of the kids asked if it was a tree (which I don't really understand but there you go). Tracks or coprolites are really good trace fossils (the type of fossil no one ever thinks about). They show evidence of the animal but is not part of the animal itself.
I also realized that some of the fossils I do have that don't actually look that cool are really good learning tools. For example the petrified wood is just a big chunk but it is a good example of how the wood becomes a stone. And I have a little piece of sandstone that has imprints of tiny shells and it was the best trace fossil I had.
It was a fun activity though and maybe some of the kids will remember that not all fossils are dinosaur bones!
