(Uncrated theme music)
Let's uncrate an adventure today!
Hello, we are here with Tsiory Andrianavalona,
the keynote speaker for this year's PaleoFest.
So, Tsiory, we're glad to have you here at
PaleoFest again.
Yeah, I'm glad to be here!
You gave such a great, inspirational talk
last night. I'm hoping you can tell us about
the program that you're running in Madagascar.
Okay, so I'm the co-founder of an NGO called
ExplorerHome Madagascar. I co-found it with
my husband. So, basically, it's to link scientists
with non-scientists. We've run the program
two years now, and we mostly work with high
school students. We bring them to the field
site where scientists are doing their work
so they can experiment and they can be excited
by the hands on activities.
That's great! What kind of technology are
you getting them interacting with during the
studies they do?
It depends on the program, so we have four
running programs for now. For example, we
have BioBlitz. The students are using their
smart phone and an app called iNaturalist,
and they just go in and take a picture and
they can know what type of insect or plant
they just took a picture of.
Okay, and it helps them identify those things?
Yes, so they can upload the data on iNaturalist,
and all the scientists all around the world
can help them to identify the specimen.
Okay, great. Do you know how many kids have
gone through your programs at this point?
At this point we had two Sciencing Out programs,
so 21 high school students, and then we had
BioBlitz program, around 42 students, and
we have what we call "Ask a Scientist" program.
So that's an online program. We don't know
how to monitor this one because we mostly
use Facebook, and we just know how many followers
we have.
Right. Okay, that's great. Then, our last
question, do you have a favorite fossil that
you like to talk about?
So, I'm the co-founder of the NGO, but I'm
also a paleontologist.
Right.
So, before, I was working on sharks, and I
think my favorite fossils are sharks.
Okay, from any particular age?
So, in the time period I was working on, it
was 23 million years ago, and the sharks that
I like the most is the hammerhead shark.
Alright, great. Well, thank you so much for
your time and for coming out to Rockford,
Illinois to speak at PaleoFest this year.
Thank you! Thank you for inviting me.
Walking up the steps.
Yeah, we're gonna do that.
I'm heading over to the face paint.
Alright! What are you gonna get painted?
I don't know.
Alright, we gotta do that too, right, Brad?
Are we gonna paint my face?
Uhh, we might have to shave your face a little
bit though.
You ain't shavin' nothin', buddy!
Alright.
It's cold outside, heh heh.
Look at all these people, Brad. There's people
everywhere.
There are. You like lookin' down on your girl,
Jane?
Yeah, she's alright, I'll tell you what. Pretty
cool there.
(Uncrated theme music)
