On Sunday October 2nd, 2016 part of the BETA team attended "Sunday at the Quarry," a community outreach event. This took place at BMC Aggregates in Raymond, IA (about 20 minutes from UNI's campus). The team split up the day in shifts with Juliana starting the team off at 10am, joined by Allie and Katie, and later Emma, Claire, and Jose until 4pm. Dr. Sedlacek helped supervise and explain the geology to attendees in the actual pit (where BMC collects their rock) while Dr. Sebree spent the day helping out with the team (and collecting quite a few rocks and crystals to take home).
The day went fairly smoothly with some of the best weather the event has had in years. The biggest problem?
"I was surprised on how many bugs bit me during that time." -Jose
With warmer weather came more bugs (and not enough bug spray). However, the team did not let the bugs deter their work. They had a handful of things to bring to the table.
"We worked the table that the BETA project was running, where we talked to families about what the BETA project does, handed out fossils from our recent trip to Rockford, and demonstrated how fog is created by pouring hot water on cold rocks and dry ice. We also had a chance to try and smash rocks with a hammer and collect rocks from a trip down into the quarry." -Emma
Over the course of the 6 hours, the team estimated they talked with (and gave fossils to) between 75-100 kids. The team brought plenty of fossils so they were able to make sure no kid went home empty handed!
When asked about their favorite part, the team members gave the following responses:
"My favorite part of the day was going down into the quarry and getting to look around. I always find behind-the-scenes kind of tours fascinating." -Emma
"Getting to hang out with my team members." -Claire
"There were three very fun parts of my day at Raymond. First, explaining kids about the BETA project and finding some of them so interested in learning more and with the certain scientific intuition. Second, finding some fossils and minerals from the Devonian brought from other quarries. And third, talking with the leaders of the Cedar Valley and Waterloo rocks and minerals societies and finding so many people interested in learning geology and the ongoing research at UNI. Especially, their will to help us made the day more special (I learned so much from them as well!)." -Juliana
"The pit was amazing, but truly my favorite part of this experience was seeing all the kids leave happy from the quarry." -Jose
"It was fun watching the kids learn that all of Iowa was once covered in water. " -Katie
Since the day was broken into shifts, each of the team members were able to experience Sunday at the Quarry as an attendee as well and that possibility ended in a fun story from Emma and Jose.
"When Jose and I went to go break rocks with hammers, and quarry worker side-tracked us and said he had something special for us in his truck. Of course, he was just letting us pick out some really cool rocks that had been brought up from the quarry (I got a really cool crystal!), but it sounded a little bit like he wanted to kidnap us!" -Emma
Even though the event itself was a fun time for the team, they all took the time to reflect on what they learned and what could be improved upon for next year.
"Maybe make the “fog simulation” bucket clear so kids could see through, because most weren’t tall enough to see over the rim of the bucket we were using." -Katie
"A big pamphlet with the BETA project name on it and some UNI colors to make the table more interesting visually would be a good thing to add. Additionally, some small cards (i.e book dividers or something useful for people) so that they can take home with them that have bullet points about what we are doing in the BETA project and how to get into our blog. This would be beneficial in case they have further interest in our efforts and findings. Also, more dry ice for the fog demo would be a great idea (rocks warm up too fast)."
-Juliana
"We ran out of water for the fog simulation, so maybe more water next time." -Claire
"Next year we should find a way to bring more hot water- everyone thought the fog display was really interesting, but after the hot water ran out it was less impressive." -Emma
"I learned that a 1 m cube of limestone rock is equal to a ton." -Jose
All in all, as Katie put it...
"Day At The Quarry = Success!" -Katie