[meteorite-list] More backstory on the schoolyard find

From: Richard Kowalski <damoclid_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:06:47 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <367211.12204.qm_at_web113604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Mike asked me to post this. If the link below does not work, it is the same one I posted in my earlier message

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Richard Kowalski
Full Moon Photography
IMCA #1081
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After Terry Boudreaux and I gave a two hour presentation to more than 500 kids at the Grant-Iowa County school yesterday,  we asked all the kids who was going to hunt for meteorites during recess. Of course all the children screamed and raised their hands. Minutes later, while news crews were shooting footage and doing interviews with us in the schoolyard, a 6 year old boy screamed he found a meteorite, which was a beautiful and perfect 100% crusted ~40 gram stone.
The school went crazy and another stone was found by a young girl a little while later.  It was amazing to speak to the school, and every child there saw or heard the meteorite go overhead. I think that all these kids will be searching for meteorites now. The 8th-grade science teacher at the school told me he dropped his teaching plans for the next week and has moved his classes into researching meteorites on the net and doing reports on meteorites and meteorite falls. He was so happy at all of this and said that the children are so excited to come to class since the fall last week and did not want to talk about anything but the meteorite anyway so he went with it. I was mobbed by kids wanting to talk about my trips to Africa and how to find meteorites, so I think a few old falls may turn up on the farms from all this.
To bridge the gap between meteorite dealers and scientific institutions, I presented one of the stones I found as a gift to the Field Museum for the meteorite collection.
The Mifflin meteorite was great, but pressing projects have forced me to leave the strewnfield and go home today, leaving the country again tomorrow. Thanks most to Terry for getting this fall so much media attention, and to Michael Johnson for tirelessly precessing raw photos direct from the field and posting them, the list can now see meteorites moments after they are found.
 
Michael Farmer
 
http://video.nbc15.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?ClipID1=4722425&h1=VIDEO%3A%20Mystery%20in%20the%20Sky%3A%20Big%20Find%20at%20Local%20School%204-21-10&vt1=v&at1=News&d1=40656&LaunchPageAdTag=News&fvCatNo=&backgroundImageURL=&activePane=info&rnd=34669097
      

Received on Thu 22 Apr 2010 02:06:47 PM PDT