What is ACCESS?
The ACCESS (or ACCESS Paleo) program is a collaborative partnership between the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) and community college instructors to bring engaging paleo- and geoscience labs to college classrooms around the country. Each of our open-access online labs integrates 3D-models of fossils, paleobiological data, and web-accessible interactives to teach students about the history of life, while developing their capacity for scientific thought. As all the materials for each lesson are integrated into a single online document, ACCESS Online labs are available to any instructors who wish to use them: You can find an overview of the current ACCESS Online program here. For college instructors in the California Bay Area, we also offer a series of in-person ACCESS Bay Area lessons hosted at the UCMP.
ACCESS Online
We currently are offering seven open-access online labs that cover a wide range of topics across paleobiology, Earth system science, and general science instruction. ACCESS Online labs are designed for easy implementation in both hybrid and in-person teaching, providing flexibility for instructors who teach in a variety of formats. They are designed to be completed within a 3-hour lab period, and can be assigned as group-work or independent activities. You can read more about the ACCESS Online labs here.
All ACCESS Online labs are hosted on Google Forms, giving instructors full flexibility to modify the content of the labs for their classrooms. You can view an example of an ACCESS Online lab here. We work closely with instructors using ACCESS Online to adapt the labs to meet the needs and learning goals of their classrooms. If you are interested in using one of the ACCESS Online labs or have questions about the program, please contact us at access.paleo.ucmp@gmail.com for more information!
ACCESS Bay Area
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we offered the option of in-person ACCESS labs to instructors at Bay Area community colleges. In-person ACCESS labs are hosted at the University of California Berkeley and provide students with hands-on experiences with real fossils from the UCMP, as well as a tour of the UCMP collections. Currently, we offer in-person paleobiology and paleobotany lessons at the UCMP. We hope to resume offering in-person ACCESS labs at the UCMP soon, university and UCMP policy-permitting.
If you are a Bay Area community college instructor and are interested in running an ACCESS lab at the UCMP, contact us at access.paleo.ucmp@gmail.com. We will work with you to schedule a time during regular instruction hours that your students can travel to campus to complete an ACCESS lab, and return home to campus within their normal schedule. When requested, ACCESS also organizes events for community college student groups that can include campus tours, tours of other museums, and question and answer sessions with student and faculty panels. Please contact us for more information.
More Information:
- Who we are
- Why community colleges?
- What does an ACCESS Bay Area lab look like?
- Student success
- Partner programs