Here is the original post on the BCF Fossil Adventure Table.

Yes, I made it to The Glacier Stops Here Expo, and I think what I’m going to share with you is a review of what worked and what didn’t because some of you may be interested in doing something similar elsewhere. And my hope is that if you have ideas, etc. that would help me, that you will please share them.

I was put in with the Century High School kids and their display on invasive species because they were helping me with the kids activities – WHAT A BLESSING! We had 40′ of space and I ended up taking 3 of the 4 8′ tables and could have used the fourth! And there is no way I could have covered everything, so the students were absolutely critical to making this a success.

Overview of the booths.

 Not all of my pictures turned out, but I’m going to go table by table.

Fossil Display Table

The map you see on the right was provided by Terry Lee of Olmsted County and is the geologic bedrock formations in Olmsted County – super helpful for fossil hunting. But it was not looked at that much unfortunately. People really stopped and studied the fossils in the large dry aquarium. I only had one person come in for fossil identification. Both the jewelry and sculpture were of interest to people, but not overly. The fluorescent fossil aquarium display was a surprise and a success with young and old. How it was created is HERE.

Here is closeup of the big aquarium – tap picture to make larger if desired. I created an Ordovician, more or less, background and had it laminated (<$5) and used velcro to stick it to the inside of the aquarium for ease of moving it. The foamcore display board is stuck on with velcro on the back of the aquarium. This is a permanent display in my home, so the sand on the bottom is stabilized by spreading white glue on the bottom (dries clear) and sprinkling sand over it then letting that dry. At home there are a lot more fossils in it, but here I kept it to a minimum.

People were especially fascinated by the blastoid necklace. There was a lot of lusting after my ID sheets (I felt complimented by that) and I just told them that they were downloadable on my blog. The sculpture was only moderately interesting and as I said only one person brought in fossils for ID.

Overview of the sand box table.

The fossil sand box dig is popular for little kids at fossil shows everywhere and was here too. I got what I consider the perfect sand box (looks like rock) from Menards for cost –  $30, comes with a lid. I was told if I had asked a couple of weeks in advance I probably could have had it donated by headquarters – live and learn. It would have taken about 250 lbs. of sand to get any coverage. Last minute I decided on a garbage bag full of sawdust because I just didn’t want to deal with the weight of the sand. SUCCESS! Worked great! I added 3 chip paint brushes and a <$4 magnifying visor from Harbor Freight and it was great!  All fossils were generously donated by members of thefossilforum.com. This is a memorial sand box for Caleb Scheer and his dad asked that it be free to kids. Normally these fossil dig sand boxes have a $2-$4 charge with the monies going to scholarships.

I do have to say that there were a couple of times I teared up at the show because Caleb’s dad and mom came by and a number of his relatives and people who were waiting on their kids were asking about him. Caleb was such a shining star in the fossil world here…

Show Stealer!

The chicken was definitely a show highlight for young and old! And the TV stations all filmed her! Her cage is actually two cages that I cable tied together and there is a stick in there for her to roost on. I had bird seed in the feeder and a little dry fountain for a waterer. A scrap of vinyl flooring underneath and sawdust for poop coverage. I laid landscape burlap over the entire table and the cage for continuity and had a lot of dollar store foliage to look like a jungle. In the left hand corner there is a plastic dinosaur egg with a little dinosaur hatching that several of the little ones thought was real! The signage made the adults laugh and was informative to the kids that could read. This hen is an Americauna that lays green eggs. Everyone was asking her name and breed – she’s just a hen to me and I should have had signage on her breed. She did lay an egg that I put out front but shouldn’t have as the kids wanted to grab it and that could have been a mess!

She did cackle some and brought people over to the booth. The fly tyers there were checking her out for hackle feathers. By chance, two days before an article hit the national news on “The Chicken from Hell” dinosaur. There were lots of comments about that.

Fossil prep and MAPS

I had the MAPS book (Mid-America Paleontology Society) and fliers there and fossil prep stuff including an electric engraver. This was very popular at the Mystery Cave re-dedication but was totally ignored here. I think it was placement. I didn’t have a long enough extension cord to put it with the rest of the activities – something to note for next time. I was asked a number of times for a flier, but I had only made one… And I will be putting it up on the blog this week, so I told people to just watch for it.

Dino diorama and fairy garden.

These were to the left of the chicken and got lost too. That chicken fascinated people! And I couldn’t move the sand box out because I didn’t have a stand for the Caleb Scheer Memorial Sand Box Dig sign.

Overview of fossil activities table.

This table was definitely the highlight for the kids! And the high school kids who were helping had a blast too, which honestly surprised me. While the high schoolers were waiting to help smaller kids that came by they were having a blast making casts and fossil jewelry for themselves to give to the kids – mostly out of the sharks teeth. I had set out the tools for jewelry making, some string and ribbon for necklaces, and some inexpensive wire in green, gold and silver for wire wrapping plus a few pieces of my jewelry tied off to a piece of foam core so they didn’t walk off as examples.

Shark tooth and gastropod necklace.

The high schoolers were poking among the bags and baskets of fossils I had set out learning about geologic formations and various fossils and made rings, necklaces and even ankle bracelets out of fossils!

I had pretty nice signage with pictures of the animals and fish for the non-readers or non-English speaking (Rochester, MN has a large population of non-English speaking people). I didn’t just dump fossils together that were labeled with formation names etc. for anyone who was into fossil hunting and provided post a notes and pens for the kids who wanted to know the names, formations, times frames and locations their fossil choice came from. In retrospect, I should have spent about $10 more on dollar store baskets. All of these fossils were provided by thefossilforum.com members!

 I ended up making the casting molds out of Amazing Putty, more info HERE. This stuff is also food safe.

Big and little kids had a blast making the molds. I had plastic bags of premixed 1:1 mortar and plaster of Paris mixed. A local MacDonald’s donated paper ketchup cups for mixing and I purchased plastic stir sticks (they were out) from the dollar store. A dollar store bucket for water and some cups, paper towels, hand wash, and plastic to mold on (makes a mess) and set them on to dry and we were in business! Almost as popular as the jewelry making.

I did have my computer set up to infinite loop a 2 minute kids video on how fossils came to be – it really wasn’t watched.

I put together two seminars “Rocks, Fossils and Caves… Oh My!” that were a definite success! They were both full of people. Since I am not a rock or cave person and these were 45 minute seminars I talked a local karst topography expert into doing one presentation and a local caver into the other. 10 minutes presentations with a 5 minutes Q&A afterward – worked out great! People seemed most interested in the caving – and don’t call them spelunkers!

I did purchase a banner, one custom T-shirt, and some business cards from Vistaprint. Next time, I will have to somehow attach a piece of lath or something light and stiff across the top of the banner to keep it straight.

Note of Interest, below is an incredible sculpture of an Ordovician sea bottom from almost all local fossils by Minnesota Buckeye. There are 5 and they we almost hidden inside a canoe on the other side of the hall. I was taking people over to them most of the afternoon on the first day and finally talked the Expo Organizer to setting them out on an unused table. I will expand on these in a separate post as they are so extraordinary!

Replica Ordovician Sea Bottom

Logistics

Remember that I am disabled from 2 strokes and a car accident when I write this. I was told I would have help unloading and setting up – didn’t happen. KILLER!

I expected food vendors – not… I had no water or food the first day. And forgot my water bottle in the truck the second and Bob forgot to bring me food.

I did bribe Bob into helping me breakdown and load up. That was a blessing as I was so exhausted after the show I just went to bed and slept for 14 hours. I’ll unpack over the next week.

Without the high school kids it would take a minimum of two people to do this.

I had nothing to sell and this whole website and blog is a volunteer activity in support of Mystery Cave’s fossil exhibit – or at least that is how it started out. It took about $250 in supplies to pull this off not even counting gas or the many, many volunteer hours that went into creating this. I was reimbursed $150, so I’m in the hole probably at least that much. However, I think I made some new friends and possible hunting buddies and who know what may eventually come out of this. The biggest thing is turning people onto fossil hunting and if even one child becomes interested in fossils instead of drugs, it is all worth it!