A Fossil Bone Collector
Okay, so studying for a science test isn't exactly a barrel of laughs. But if you had to study for a living, what could be more exciting than learning about weird and wild creatures from the past? For the magazine's fall issue, Pop talked to Steve Cumbaa, a palaeontologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Steve has been in this field for 25 years, first as an archaeologist and then as a palaeontologist. He has worked in the Arctic, Cape Breton Island, Alberta and even as far away as China. He has looked for ancient human artifacts, as well as for bones that are more than 400 million years old.
With all this diverse experience, not to mention a whole lot of travel stories, Steve has a lot to say about this job: "It's not all Indiana Jones stuff. It's exciting and occasionally dangerous, but it's just a heck of a lot of fun."
He says that in Canada a palaeontologist's time is divided by the seasons. That means in the summer months he goes out on digs, which last from one to eight weeks. In the autumn, he goes over his findings and then gets presentations ready for meetings so that other palaeontologists can see his work. In the winter, he writes and publishes reports on the things he found last summer. And by late spring, he is getting ready to go on another dig.
Most palaeontologists work for museums, universities or national parks. Some even work as advisers on dinosaur films, though this happens only occasionally.
So while we're on the subject of dinosaur films, just how realistic are they? Says Steve, "The animation generally is better than it has ever been," and he feels that Disney's Dinosaur is by far the best. The only difficulty with this flick: to make the dinosaurs talk, artists had to change their heads a little.
With all this travel and a chance to work on Hollywood productions, obviously being a palaeontologist is a pretty cool career. So how does someone get into this profession? Steve suggests that kids should take all the science courses they can, especially biology and geology, as well as some math and computer courses. And they should like the outdoors, because going on digs is much like camping.
Can this job get any better?
