EDUCATION ACTIVITIES 2008

• Starfish symmetry oddities -- to be presented at the 13th Annual Cape Cod Natural History Conference, Cape Cod Community College, West Barnstable, 8 March.
• Starfish and the number five -- a talk by Fred Hotchkiss, director of the Marine and Paleobiological Research Institute (MPRInstitute.org), presented 15 January at the Tuesday Conversations Group, Howes House, West Tisbury, and 4 March at the Vineyard Haven Public Library, Tuesday evening lecture series. Funded in part by a grant from the Martha’s Vineyard Cultural Council in collaboration with the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

EDUCATION ACTIVITIES 2007

• Starfish and the number five -- lecture presented 14 November at the Chilmark Free Public Library; sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Public Library and the Martha’s Vineyard Cultural Council.
• Marine fossils, a classroom visit with second and third graders at the Martha's Vineyard Charter School, 8 November, jointly with Justen Walker of Felix Neck.
• Starfish and the number five: A talk by Fred Hotchkiss, director of the Marine and Paleobiological Research Institute (MPRInstitute.org). Presented 21 August at the Featherstone Center for the Arts as part of their Tuesday evening lecture series. This MPRI lecture was funded in part by a grant from the Martha’s Vineyard Cultural Council in collaboration with the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
• MVRHS honors student senior Sagitta Woodman did a spring term independent study photographing fossils through the microscope. Posters created from this project were used as visual aids at the June Fossil Mania event. Funded in part by a grant from the Martha's Vineyard Cultural Council.
• Classroom presentation on Plate Tectonics, scientific method and fossils at two seventh grade science classes in Oak Bluffs, 30 March
• Invited speaker for the Conversations group at the Oak Bluffs Senior Center (16 March) and the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center (20 July)
• Serving on masters thesis committee for graduate student René Lewis, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, NC
• MPRI was represented at the Western Interior Paleontological Society Founders Symposium "Inscribed in Stone: Evolution and the Fossil Record", at the Colorado School of Mines, 3-4 March, with the display of our research poster on a fossil sea star: Bdellacoma in the Hunsrück Slate (Lower Devonian, Germany)
• Fossil Mania, a collaboration between the Audubon Society's Felix Neck Sanctuary on Martha's Vineyard and MPRI, at Felix Neck, 3 March and 9 June

EDUCATION ACTIVITIES 2006

• Disseminated knowledge at conferences, through publications, public exhibits and lectures, and via the website.
• Continued development of MPRInstitute.org website. Presented poster at the 12th International Echinoderms Conference, University of New Hampshire [August] [Durham, NH].
• Submitted two manuscripts for publication [Proceedings of 12th IEC] [Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae].
• MPRI purchased some additional, larger pieces of the Baja California fossil brittlestar bed for the thesis research of graduate student René Lewis.
• Attended the Developmental Biology of the Sea Urchin XVII meeting (DBSUXVII), 27-30 September, at the Marine Biological Laboratories, Woods Hole.
• MPRI applied for and was awarded partial funding from the Martha's Vineyard Cultural Council, and received matching donation from James F. Clark and Carol Panek Clark, to develop Ancient sea life fossil exhibit and lecture in 2007; the first iteration will be tailored for 7th and 8th grade students in Oak Bluffs, MA.