On Sunday, a few of the BETA team members headed out to Sunday at the Quarry to volunteer and check out the day's activities. It was a little chilly, but that didn't stop the event from having a great turn out!
Dr. Sedlacek was working in the pit, explaining the history of the pit's geologic past with Dr. Lee Potter (also from the Earth Science department). It kept her pretty busy throughout the day as a new group of community members arrived multiple times per hour.
Jessica meandered through the various activities before heading down to the pit to help with some crowd control. While the area appeared very stable, as it is an active quarry, some precautions have to be taken. She spent the majority of the time making sure no one climbed the rock faces, but also interacting with community members on what they found, helping them determine what they were seeing, and assisting with moving some rocks back to the bus when needed. Before the last bus came, Jessica made sure to grab a few geodes from the pit- they were a very cool souvenir of the day. While most people followed the guidelines, making her job pretty easy, her favorite part was the reaction of the community members.
"It was really cool to see how the faces of the visitors lit up when they found some calcite crystals embedded in the rock."
Katie spent most of her time volunteering at the Earth Science table including managing the Lego area where kids could spend some time building cool structures. While she spent a lot of time at the booth, she also managed to get down to the pit for a while to try to find some fossils. While the fossils were not plentiful, she did find some rocks with beautiful fluorite crystals in them to take home. After the day ended, Katie shared her reaction to the day:
"I think the event was a great way to get the public to think about our planet and how we interact with it. The organizations gave people ideas for how they could help our environment - from volunteering for water quality sampling events to ways to prevent erosion. There were also a lot of great activities for kids, like breaking rocks and playing with Legos, so it was engaging for the whole family."
Sunday at the Quarry was an overwhelming success and a fun time for everyone involved. It's an annual event and you can bet to find some of the team there next year as well!