Teaching about palynology is a key activity to demonstrate its utility in solving geologic and biologic problems. We develop teaching exercises that involve palynology but there is little communication of these approaches and we should do a better job.  There are two objectives to broadening knowledge about teaching palynology:

1)    Exercises are usable or inspirational for other palynologists.

2)    Infiltration of palynological examples into broader paleontologic teaching.  Palynological examples are rare in general paleontology texts and few palynologists (or even micropaleontologists) have participated in recent workshops on teaching paleontology.

As an example, I present an exercise on climate and vegetation change in southeastern N.C. over the last 50,000 years.  Textbooks and Quaternary literature emphasize glaciated areas or the pelagic ocean; this seems irrelevant to those on the Atlantic Coastal Plain.  The pollen record from Carolina Bays, oval depressions of enigmatic origin common in the area, shows that this never-glaciated area was nonetheless significantly changed.  The pollen record begins with an interglacial assemblage, similar to today’s vegetation.  Above this, most angiosperm trees and Taxodium disappear, while Pinus becomes more abundant and Isoetes appears during the glacial.  Then a deglaciation sequence occurs marked by re-appearance of the angiosperm trees with an increase in Compositae near the surface marking European settlement.  Students analyze basic taphonomy for pollen accumulation in lakes.  They divide the record into intervals, compare the vegetation record, and make climate interpretations.  Finally, they are asked to think about whether vegetation ever reaches equilibrium (or what is the “natural” vegetation?).  This exercise  (Farley, 2009) provides an opportunity for students to analyze a local multivariate dataset and place these changes in a larger climate change context.  I also knock complexity out of this example and use it in my historical geology lab.

Farley, M.B., 2009,   Quaternary Paleoecology and Climate Change, Bladen County, NC: Teaching Paleontology in the 21st Century, http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/paleo/activities/33168.html