outreach
Sure, we keep meteorites intact, but keeping them locked up doesn’t do anyone much good. We’ve given talks at elementary and middle schools in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, high schools in Los Angeles, and at UC Berkeley and UCLA.
If you’re a teacher or are affiliated with a group that would like to learn about and see/hold some meteorites, you’re welcome to send over an email. Availability is subject to your location and our schedules, but we welcome to opportunity to share these wonders of the universe with any and all who wish to experience them.
We’re not great about taking photos when out and about, but here are some that have been taken at a few outreach events.
The in-situ lakebed specimen pictured is one of the first of its kind. Since going on our first meteorite hunts in the late 1990’s, we have found many meteorites, some of which are common types, found broken into many fragments. We decided to remove some of those specimens in matrix to help show what meteorites look like when you find them.
When we first met with Griffith Observatory representatives in 2004 regarding their new display, they looked right past all of the interesting meteorites and pointed at a big chunk of mud with a little brown rock embedded in it.
Here’s a schematic of the display, with the lakebed box highlighted.
Unfortunately, they wanted a chunk of lakebed much smaller than the one we had. Our first meeting was on a Friday; we went hunting that weekend, and had a new meteorite in matrix for them the following Monday. The Griffith Observatory cut the matrix to the dimensions of the clear box in the display, and it remains an accurate example of what a meteorite looks like in the field.
Mars Day 2014, with the Mars Society of Los Angeles. There were plenty of other displays and activities for kids —
Exploring Your Universe 2014, with UCLA. Photos by Mojhgan Haghnegahdar.
Exploring Your Universe 2015, with UCLA. The room’s electronic body-counter tallied about 1,000 visitors for the day, with total attendance for the event at ~7,000. Just the meteorites:
