No Bones About It!

In my last post I mentioned that I was preparing to work with Lee Post, aka "The Boneman." This is all in relation to my job as an AmeriCorps environmental educator at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center. It has been an amazing experience so far and I can't wait to see how the rest of the week turns out!

The last two days have been spent training volunteers to measure and photograph bones from our gray whale skeleton, which is used as a teaching tool, instead of being fully articulated as an exhibit. The trainings are all in preparation for an even bigger project at the marine science center -- the articulation and exhibition of a transient orca skeleton -- and I am so grateful that I get to be here in this time and place to be involved with this hands-on project.

Cervical vertebra from a juvenile gray whale. Photo taken on my camera phone of the experimental photography set-up.

Ever since working as an educator at The Whale Museum on San Juan Island, I had wondered what it would be like to articulate a whale skeleton. I read Lee Post's books on articulation, but never dreamed I would get to do any articulating myself. And now, some years later, I'm preparing to do exactly that; I'm training volunteers and learning about articulation from Lee Post himself!