Triassic dinosaurs & steam trains...am I in Heaven?

This weekend was spent working the Bristol Dinosaur Project's booth at the Bristol Festival of Nature. Our duties were, in short, to help visitors - mostly children - cast Thecodontosaurus bones in plaster and to disseminate as much information as possible about the animal itself in doing so. There will be pictures posted on the Bristol Dinosaur Project's site shortly, as well as background about the program for those of you who haven't been reading my entries religiously (why not?). I also took some pictures this weekend, some of which I reproduce here, the rest of which you can find on my Yahoo Photos site.
I also need to correct some mistakes I've made in earlier posts. Minobu is in fact Manabu, Reese is Rhys, and I don't take a class named "Global Change," but "History of the Biosphere." The details can be so confusing...

22 October 2005

I was up bright and early this morning to head down to the enigmatically named @ Bristol, the local science museum and organizer of the Bristol Festival of Nature. However, our booth was set up across the Floating Harbour in the Industrial Museum, so after rendezvousing with Ross, Emma, and Sarah, we all headed across the bridge to set up. The booth was very straightforward (as you can sort of see in the picture of Ross and Emma explaining things to a visitor): a table with leaflets, a replica of a Thecodontosaurus arm, molds of bones, and plenty of plaster and water. Our big hook was a replica of the biggest Camarasaurus (a large genus to begin with, even for a dinosaur) leg I think I have ever seen. With all that set up, getting people to come over and learn about paleontology was like shooting fish in a barrel. How could anyone say no to the offer of their own plaster dinosaur bone? Within the first half hour, we had already made a little girl's day, which she showed by jumping up and down incessantly. A boy that afternoon had a similar reaction, shouting "Yes!" over and over again when he received his cast. More on the odd side was an older man who approached the table and put his hand on one of the molds and then just stood there. He didn't say anything until we asked if he wanted to make his own dinosaur bones. When he started talking, I was perplexed, thinking he had the strongest Bristol accent I'd yet heard, but when I glanced over at the others at the table, it became clear that none of us could understand a word. We eventually gave him one of our extra casts, which seemed to make him happy, as he wandered off, but not until after he offered us a swig from his enormous bottle of cider, which explained a great deal.
I did of course manage to find some time for some relaxing during breaks. Carlos, Manabu, and I decided that too many chefs really did spoil the stew, so at noon we went back over to @ Bristol to see a screening of Walking With Dinosaurs on the big (ish) screen. It was surprisingly short (as one of the kids in the audience irately pointed out, "They didn't show the whole thing!"), so we all went to grab a bite to eat at a nearby burger joint (Need I even say how far ahead America is of Britain in burger technology?). Dinner found me with the same crowd, but with many of the other PhD students added. The company was great, and the high number of foreigners in the group made for some fascinating conversations about international affairs (though of course we had a hefty helping of more low-brow topics as well). More importantly, it was in the Hope & Anchor, the pub literally feet from my house where I have been trying to get people to go since I got here. Its reputation was well-earned: it was very clean and nice, the owners were friendly, the food was good, and the prices were a bit steep. Despite that last, we all had a great evening.

23 October 2005

Day Two of the Bristol Festival of Nature was very similar to day one, but with perhaps slightly less colorful visitors (case in point, there were no more offers of cider). That said, I found that almost all the people we encountered this weekend were a great deal easier to talk with about science than your average PSC visitor (though of course this was only one weekend). I noticed in particular that no one berated us for talking about evolution. Far from it, in fact: that seemed to be most people's favorite topic to discuss (with the exception of most of the boys, who wanted to know about dinosaurs that ate other dinosaurs - so some things are universal). I must say I found it very refreshing to talk about science without feeling that someone could pounce on me at any minute.
Manabu and I took an hour or so off in the afternoon to ride the Bristol Harbour Railway. The train runs along the Floating Harbour from the Industrial Museum to Hotwells, and I had been looking forward to riding it since I got here. However, I hadn't had my chance, as it usually only runs in the summer. Happily, they decided to run it for the Festival of Nature, and the platform was literally right outside the door from us. It was well worth the £2 return ticket, largely because it's a true working steam locomotive. We were so excited by the prospect that we sat immediately behind the engine so we could see all of its workings. It turns out that there was a reason for putting roofs on passenger cars, as Manabu and I found out to our cost as we picked little bits of coal out of our eyes and mouths. Still, we both agreed that it was one of the highest points of a weekend that had more than its share of them.
The late afternoon was fairly slow, giving me a chance to look around at some of the other booths at the festival. Most were conservation groups, several of them local and full of information about wildlife viewing in the Bristol area. The City Museum was also there, also with several fossils (None that you could take home with you..scoree one for the University!). The zoo had brought down a few invertebrates for people to handle. The cockroaches and millipedes were old hat, of course, but they had some absolutely enormousAfricann Giant Land Snails. The BBC let you play around with many of their various different types of camera. The only real downer was the exhibit about turtles, which was upbeat enough in and of itself, but had chosen an unfortunate centerpiece. It was a model of a giant tortoise that had a melancholy enough look about it to begin with, which was only heightened by the tendency of the head to roll grotesquely to the side and eventually just fall off.
We wrapped up our weekend by adjourning to the pub for drinks and dinner. That's done now, and I'm faced with the odd prospect of a later wake up time on Monday than I had all weekend. That's not to say that I regret signing up for this at all; it may have been the most fun I've had since arriving here. It's been four weeks since I left PSC now, and it was oddlyinvigoratingg to get back in the science education game. If another such opportunity presents itself, I'll be the first in line to take advantage of it.