THE HOOPER VIRTUAL NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

www.wf.carleton.ca/Museum/lobby.html

THREE years ago, Tim Patterson, an associate professor of earth science at Carleton University in Ottawa, started giving his undergraduate students a choice: they could turn in traditional term papers on topics in paleontology, or they could create relevant Web pages. Each year, about half the class has opted for the latter. These classroom assignments are now on the Web as the Hooper Virtual Natural History Museum, produced largely by third-year undergraduates majoring in geoscience.

The museum was named to honor Dr. Ken Hooper, the first paleontologist in the earth sciences department. Its virtual wings range from The Mammalarium to Microfossils and Theoretical Paleontology. Students have selected the topics for their presentations, resulting in a pleasantly broad range of subjects in each of the wings.

For example, in the Flight wing, you will find The Flying Dragons, the pterosaurs. You can choose to see an animation of the beast in flight or go on to a page offering a range of information about pterosaurs — plus a fanciful depiction of a pterosaur attempting to rescue Fay Wray and battling King Kong. Click on the navigation icon at the bottom of the page, and you move from fantasy back to reality.

What follows is a well-crafted presentation about the pterosaur, including information that is easy for nonscientists, including children, to grasp. The author poses several questions: Did these extinct flying lizards walk on two legs or on all four? Were they warmblooded or not? He provides answers and identifies the controversies that remain. Excellent illustrations, complete with citations, are included.

Other noteworthy presentations include Gastropoda: Snails Throughout the Ages, in the Invertebrates wing; Burgess Shale: Hidden Treasure in the Canadian Rockies, in the Fantastic Fossil Finds wing; and Evolution and Creationism: An Objective Evaluation, in the Evolution and Extinction wing. Dr. Patterson said the presentation quality improved each year. So while each exhibit remains within a museum wing for a year, some are moved to the Archives after that.

With traditional homework assignments, only two people — the student author and the teacher — read most term papers. Dr. Patterson said that because his students had a way to share their work with a broader audience via the Web site, many of them took greater care with their projects. Moreover, public display of the work helps students learn from one another.