This past July, we exhibited for the first time at the JMIH scientific conference (that’s the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the “City of Bridges” did not disappoint!
Some of the many bridges for which Pittsburgh is known. All photos by me, Aaron Olsen.
Though the city was a wonder to explore, most of our time was, of course, spent at our booth in the conference exhibit hall. And the star of our booth was our Dogfish Shark Skull Active Learning Kit.
The JMIH conference was a fantastic opportunity for us to connect with professors from around the US who teach comparative anatomy, ichthyology, and shark biology and with professional educators associated with leading natural history museums and aquaria.
Historically, anatomical models have primarily been designed as demonstration models – that is, good for looking and pointing at. But students learn best from actively doing, not just passively looking. So we designed our shark model as a kit with several different activities students can do, all contained in one box. We filled our booth with several shark kits, each showing off a different activity students can do.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth, for the wonderful conversations and new connections, and thank you to Pittsburgh for being a great host city. We hope to visit again soon!
