Judy Genshaft Honors College student Isabel Delgado-Frontera had the chance to travel 400 million years into the past to study Ordovician-era fossils through University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee Professor Lydia Wassink’s study away course, Fossil Hunters. Focused on hands-on learning, the course included a field trip to Cincinnati, Ohio, and the surrounding region, where students searched for fossils in established beds and explored the ancient history of the area.
“I have a passion for collecting Ordovician fossils in the Cincinnati area, which is the best site in the world to collect these fossils,” said Wassink.“ The Fossil Hunters course offers students a really cool opportunity to learn about evolution and see it in a very tangible way."
Fossil Hunters is a fast-paced Maymester class and a Judy Genshaft Honors College study away program that fulfills the experiential learning requirement for Honors students. Honors study away trips offer students affordable study-abroad alternatives within the U.S., allowing them to travel while earning course credit.
“This was my first time ever dealing with fossils and anything fieldwork related, so I was just jumping in,” said Delgado-Frontera. “I really enjoyed getting out there and doing stuff that really stuck with me more than any lecture ever could.”
Delgado-Frontera’s cohort of eight students collaborated on group projects both during virtual class sessions and in the field in Cincinnati. They compiled their research into final presentations designed to educate the public about Ordovician-era fossils.
“It’s a very hands-on course, so it emphasizes this large project that students work on in teams,” Wassink said. “They learn some geographic information systems skills to make an interactive map of the different fossils that they’ve found and then create a museum exhibit communicating something about evolution or biology using their fossils and interactive map.”
MAKING NEW DISCOVERIES
During the week-long trip to Cincinnati, Wassink and her students spent hours every day digging for fossils at different sites. “We spent every day driving around to different road cuts, which are places where a path has been excavated through a hillside to put a highway in,” Wassink said. “We would find these highway locations that are good for fossils and we just climbed those slopes to see what we could find.”
Evenings were spent cleaning and varnishing fossils for better identification, discussing findings, and participating in activities designed to deepen students’ understanding of biological principles. Students were allowed to keep the fossils they collected. “I have so many fossils from this trip; I plan on giving a lot of them away to friends,” Delgado-Frontera said.
“As Isabel can attest to, it’s physically challenging and we’re out there in all kinds of weather conditions, but students have a really fun time with it,” said Wassink. “It’s very fun to climb up and down the ledges at the fossil sites. You can get really high and see the beautiful Kentucky hills and green landscape – it’s gorgeous. Within a day, everyone is a pretty good fossil hunter.”
Delgado-Frontera said she valued connecting with Honors students from all three ±«Óătv campuses. Participants pursuing diverse career paths had the unique opportunity to hunt fossils alongside peers from different fields and backgrounds.
“On the 15-hour drive to Cincinnati, you really get to know each other,” she said. “A lot of us on the trip weren’t necessarily going into fieldwork for fossils, but we all enjoyed the idea of very cool rocks and it was an experience of a lifetime.”
When asked what advice she would give to students interested in the 2025 Maymester Fossil Hunters course, Wassink said, “This is a chance for you to do something you never saw yourself doing: experientially studying evolution. You’re going to gain the most from experiences like these that are really different from what you’ve experienced before. Be bold, and don’t hesitate to dive into something completely new.”