Phase II - Bones in Schools
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Phase II expands on our Phase I project of Maps in Schools. The second phase will introduce Bones in Schools and a whole new presentation throughout the Coastal Bend schools.
Please check back for updates to this page and in the meantime, feel free to read the articles below. |
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Synocnus (Sid) Sid (ground sloth) Smilodon (Diego) Diego (saber-toothed cat) Bones from extinct Ice Age (Pleistocene) mammals that roamed south of the glaciers and ranged from California to Arizona to New Mexico to Texas to Florida animals have been discovered in Nueces County and are displayed in local Museums. Global warming started 18,000 years ago! Bones estimated to be 13,000 years old are found with wood samples 40 feet below the surface in the Wright’s Brothers Gravel pit near Bluntzer, Texas. 
These animals also used to live in southern US and became extinct about 11,000 B.C. |
 The CCGS Education Phase II was approved by the CCGS Executive Committee at a board meeting held on January 23, 2008. Part of the new program includes the funding to commission “Dinah Bowman, local artist, to paint a 3.5 by 7 foot mural of a snapshot of the Nueces Bay Floodplain 13,000 years ago that would include extinct and non-extinct species.” A 14 by 7 foot enlargement of the mural will be installed at the Northwest Branch Library in Corpus Christi, Texas. The board approved $30,000 for the mural and its installation. The mural will then be made into posters to be given to schools along with bone samples from the same time period that will be provided by Dr Jon Baskin and Ronnie Thomas from TAMU-Kingsville. Jeff Cobbs, President and Sebastian Wiedmann, Treasurer made a presentation to the Northwest Branch Library on February 24, 2008 telling the 660 invited guests about the CCGS funding of the mural and its importance to Corpus Christi. The picture at top right is Swan Lake in Ingleside where 42 extinct species were discovered in 1940 and shipped to Univ. of Texas in Austin. The shelves show 250 mammoth teeth collected by TAMU-Kingsville. The mammoth picture is a portion of the fresco mural in the Peabody Museum on the Yale University campus of the Ice Age in the Northeast. (ours will be better because it will include non-extinct species) |
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May 2007 You made it sound fun to be a geologist so when I go to high school I will graduate and take classes for geology at the University of Texas. Thanks for giving us the TigerEye stones Freddie Last night when we were eating dinner my mom said “can you give me the salt” and I said “don’t say salt anymore—they are rocks”. I told her that plastic is made from oil. Elias I liked when you said that copper is green and halite is salt. Now that you told me that, I feel great! Thanks for the bones and the map. (the bones are Phase II-Safari in south Texas.) Alejandro I want to learn about snakes and more about reptiles and volcanoes. I learned that we eat rocks every day. I learned that a Mammoth tooth was from the Ice Age. Giovanni It was really awesome that you showed us about the glacier and how long and tall a glaicer can go and how really cold a glacier can be. I also want to thank you for the map you gave us where you told us about the glacier and also for the mamoth tooth you gave to the whole school. (Wrights Brothers Gravel Pit and Quarry requires that we give the samples to the schools—and the students and the schools really appreciate them) Erik Is you’r life as a gialegust affects you personally? When I grow up I whant to be like you Sencirally:Jason (phonetic spelling is OK) I realize that science ain’t just boring and about old thing. I like it when you taugh us aboud Dago and Many (Phase II-Safari in S Texas—I tell them that the characters in the recent movie ICE AGE of Manny the Mammoth, Diego the Sabertooth cat and Sid the Sloth really lived in South Texas). Also when you told us about how your failing and how you got help-- it made (me) realize that I can do something better in my life because I’m failing science. Tony Thank you for giving us something more valuble than money or gold—thanks for your time. David I couldn’t believe that mammoths usto live her on campus. Destiny One interesting thing that you told us that I enjoyed is that 18,000 years ago Global warming began. Another interesting thins is when you told us that 11,000 years ago Manny, Diego and Sid lived in Texas (this is Phase II-Safari in South Texas—the kids like to hear and remember this stuff) Maria … the part that was the worst was when we had to go to lunch—that was a big bumer Gabriella |
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May 2007
I am very excited that the 11th annual Family Fossil Hunt is again scheduled this year at the Wright Brothers’
Gravel Pit and Quarry. This is a tremendous opportunity for students, parents and geologists to find bones of a
diverse number of extinct Pleistocene mammals in our own county. The species diversity of fauna compares to
the La Brea Tar Pit in Los Angeles---the same animals they find there, we find here and all are referred to as the
La Brea Fauna.
 Susan and I were in Las Vegas the weekend before the AAPG convention in Long Beach and we asked a cab driver to take us to the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas—it is not a usual tourist destination. It was spectacular—I would like to have something like this in Corpus Christi. The picture above is of a cast of a Mammoth along with a mural of the Las Vegas area during the Ice Age. These same animals lived in Corpus Christi. It was exciting to walk under the creature and really experience its size because when you tell a student that these animals were 16 feet tall, it is hard to imagine how big they are. This is a cast, but I saw a complete authentic skeleton for sale at the Tuscon Gem and Mineral Show for $300,000 delivered and setup. I retired from active oil and gas management at Suemaur Exploration—but find out what I have learned about retirement in my continuing saga of the oil business in Lessons Learned. Owen Hopkins President Corpus Christi Geological Society ccgeo.org 4/16/07 rev |
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April 2007
Phase I - Fifty-one USGS Time and Terrain Geologic Maps of the US are on the walls of local
schools thanks to the efforts and donations from many members of our society. The goal of
getting 100 of them placed by the end of this school year is on track.
 Owen Hopkins 3/10/07 |
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March 2007
The Phase I--Maps in School Project 2006-2007 to place the USGS Time and Terrain Geologic Map of the US in 100 schools in the Coastal Bend before the end of this school year is on track.
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MATH & SCIENCE: U.S. VS. WORLD Cinda Alvarado - Magazine Editor Posted 8/13/2007 at 3:47 PM
All my student life, as far back as grade school, my least favorite subject was math, followed by science. The closest I got to being excited about science was watching an animated History Channel special about dinosaurs. And in college, one of my favorite aspects to majoring in journalism was that my degree plan required only one math class. A lack of interest and naive belief that I’ll never need math and science as an adult resulted in merely doing the minimum in those subjects to get by. Of course, I’m kicking myself for it now — as I am currently re-learning basic math skills to help improve my GRE scores for a doctoral degree. In this issue CorpusBeat examines challenges local educators have in advancing their students in math and science, plans to move their schools forward in these subjects and why this is so important both nationally and in South Texas. In a 2005 mathematics assessment administered to students in 15 countries, 11 outperformed the U.S., and four scored similarly. None scored significantly below the U.S., according to the National Academies, Advisors to the Nation on Science, Engineering and Medicine. When I spoke with semi-retired geologist Owen Hopkins I was taken aback by his enthusiasm and passion about science. In examining this issue I heard some innovative and creative ideas about how local schools can improve math and science education, but it is Owen that comes to mind. “Next year, my goal is to put bones in schools,” he says. “There is a gravel pit west of town and they occasionally find these amazing bones, mammoth teeth the size of a loaf of bread. And get this, mammoth only have four teeth and they have found hundreds of mammoth teeth in that pit. Do you know what that means? Those animals used to live in Texas! “When I go to schools and talk about this topic I bring a picture of the cartoon Ice Age — the mammoth, sloth, and saber tooth cat — all of those bones are found in the pit in Corpus Christi! The people who own the pit, the Wrights, they allow bones to be taken out and given away to schools. We give two or three bones per school when we make a visit. “My brainstorm — I want to put an actual bone or tooth or claw of some animal we found in Corpus Christi in the trophy cases of the schools. I want to put a picture of a skeleton, highlight the bone in the case, and then maybe another picture of what the animal looked like in real life, then a paleo geographic map. Paleo means old, geo means earth and graph is a map, so what Corpus Christi looked like 11,000 years ago. “We display sports awards in school trophy cases, let’s put some science too. Students will stop, look, wonder and be curious.” If only more local scientists, chemists, engineers, mathematicians, industry leaders and educators could get students as curious and excited about math, science and technology as Owen Hopkins does, imagine how that could influence the futures of our adolescents. Credit: Cinda Alvarado - Magazine Editor MATH & SCIENCE: U.S. VS. WORLD Copyright (c) 2007 CorpusBeat |
