Sasha says - Victorian Heritage Weekend 2019 - a podcast by Whitestone Geopark

Sasha shared her experience in the 2019 Oamaru Victortian Festival. 

Transcription:

Real Radio: What was the major point of interest for people?

Geoeducator: Well one of the main things that people were wanting to talk to us a bit about was, you know, what is a Geopark? And we had some really interesting exhibits there that attracted kids en masse. So we had there was a big tray there full of big hunk of limestone, which got smaller and smaller as the day went on. At one point, it was completely surrounded. You could not see the rock in the tray. And there was a queue of kids waiting to dig fossils out of the rock. And we gave kids little bags. They could put their wee fossils that they found - that they dug out of the rock in their wee bags and take them away. We had a microscope set up there. They could look at various rocks under a microscope. We had little trays with prepared foraminifera on them that you could look at through a microscope. Now foraminifera, also known as forams - tiny, tiny little fossils. So to the naked eye, they might look like the tip of a ballpoint pen. But when you look at them through a microscope, you actually realize their intricate detail. Some of them look like tiny bits of lace and they're all so different.  And so children were able to have a look at these through the microscope - and adults, of course. And the forams are a whole field of paleontology in themselves. They used a lot in the exploration for oil. They can tell you a lot about the age of a rock or a formation. And it's a whole field of specialty. But it's really interesting - these are things that kids can't normally get to see because you need quite powerful microscopes. So that was pretty exciting. We had a rock quizz - we had a tray of rocks and identification charts for people to try and be able to work out which rock name went with what actual rock specimen. We had a number of geologists that came along and introduced themselves. Of course, we like had to test them out here first, put them on the spot. And we had a colouring competition that children could take away. So people can drop those in to the library here in Oamaru and we will choose two winners and the next couple of weeks. They get a little geology kit as a prize. And then we of course, we had our sign up sheet as well for people to sign up for the newsletters and there will be a prize being drawn on that later in the week as well. So it's all happening. We were very, very busy all day.

Real Radio: That's really good. I mean, it's it's great to see kids getting enthused about it. And a few adults too no doubt.

Geoeducator: Oh, yeah. Look, children are just so interested. We had one child there that was lying on his stomach on the ground for over an hour picking fossils out of this rock. You just get into the zone and I guess what's great is that kids are really interested in what's around them, you know, quite often as adults we get a bit humdrum about things - we've seen it before. But children quite often will to see something new or something interesting that just really sparks their imagination and they're away. So it becomes really exciting for them. The level of interest is huge and I hope people have checked out our photos from our Facebook page. We took quite a few photos over the weekend and just can connect with us through that.

Real Radio: Thanks so much, Sasha. We'll catch up with you next week.

Geoeducator: Yes. I look forward to it.

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