“Everyone knows there are fossils to be found in the West — especially Wyoming — but what sets the Big Horn Basin apart?” asks Paleontologist Jason Schein. “What is it that first drew scientists here in the 1800s, and what keeps them flocking to this region from around the world even today?”

Schein, whose current home is in Philadelphia, is one of those scientists. He founded and leads the Elevation Science Institute, which is just one of the many groups trying to learn about a future, warmer Earth by visiting the Big Horn Basin and studying its ancient inhabitants and environments.

At the next Draper Natural History Museum Lunchtime Expedition lecture, Schein presents Dinosaur Paleontology in the Big Horn Basin, exploring the history and adventure of paleontology in this region. The free talk takes place Thursday, Aug. 3 at noon in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Coe Auditorium.

Those who prefer to attend virtually via Zoom webinar may do so by registering at us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Q1dXhXn4RnCNfM6wF6L4Hw#/registration.

Schein explains the Elevation Science Institute’s own brand of citizen science, with students, retirees, writers, teachers, bankers, and doctors from around the world joining the scientists each summer to help find and excavate 150-million-year-old dinosaurs.

The talk also explores the connection fossils in this region have to the Founding Fathers and the history of paleontology in the New World.

The Draper Museum’s Lunchtime Expedition lecture series, which takes place the first Thursday of each month, has been made possible through support from Sage Creek Ranch and the Nancy-Carroll Draper Charitable Foundation. 

In Schein’s extensive professional experience, including ten years as Assistant Curator of Natural History at the New Jersey State Museum, he has developed a diverse slate of engaging educational programming in the fields of natural history, geology, and paleontology for audiences of all ages, specializing in creating unique, hands-on projects to help people experience the power of science.

Schein’s scientific research projects have led him across the globe, from Alabama to Montana and even to Argentinian Patagonia, to study an array of fascinating creatures, including modern echinoderms, ancient foraminifera, fish and turtles, mosasaurs, and dinosaurs. His love of our planet’s history continually leads him to explore a vast range of subjects, including Mesozoic (primarily Jurassic and Cretaceous) vertebrate marine and terrestrial faunas, paleoecology, paleobiogeography, faunistics, taphonomy, biostratigraphy, functional morphology, sedimentology, and general natural history.