Workshops
Fossils in your Backyard: Exploring the Ancient History of Ontario

Name: Fossils in your Backyard: Exploring the Ancient History of Ontario
Start: 2026-03-29T13:00:00-0400
End: 2026-03-29T16:00:00-0400
Location: Royal Ontario Museum

Date

Sunday, Mar 29, 2026 13:00

Registration Opens

Monday, Nov 3, 2025 10:00

Admission

Workshops - Public: $90.00 Workshops - Member: $82.00

Audience

Adults (19+)

Arthroacantha carpenteri (crinoid) - ROMIP65982

Date

Sunday, Mar 29, 2026 13:00

Registration Opens

Monday, Nov 3, 2025 10:00

Admission

Workshops - Public: $90.00 Workshops - Member: $82.00

Audience

Adults (19+)

How do local fossils connect us with Ontario’s ancient past?

From trilobites and brachiopods to crinoids and corals, Southern Ontario's rocks preserve an incredible variety of plants and animals that flourished well before dinosaurs roamed the earth. Take a journey through the deep past of our province with ROM palaeontologist William Scott. Participants will take a closer look at, and touch, some of the most ancient fossils in the collections, and join the facilitators on a guided tour of the Willner Madge Gallery, Dawn of Life. This workshop will provide insight into how researchers use local fossils to reconstruct the ancient past and will help build participants’ identification skills to use when exploring their local environments.

Instructor

William Scott

William Scott is a ROM-affiliated PhD student at the University of Toronto who studies the evolution, biostratigraphy, and morphology of trilobites from the Burgess Shale. William has a BSc and MSc in Earth Science from Laurentian University, where he researched the biostratigraphy of early and middle Cambrian trilobites from the Mackenzie Mountains. In addition to his work on Cambrian trilobites, William has participated in Paleozoic bedrock mapping projects in southeastern Ontario as well as two decades of experience collecting Paleozoic fossils from all over the southern regions of the province.