La Universidad de la Experiencia de Zaragoza y el Museo de los Mares Paleozoicos: Aspectos educativos y divulgativos de la ciencia

The University of Experience of Zaragoza started in 2001 as a sort of experimental process with the aim of making science and knowledge accessible to a population not familiar with, or lacking, an academic background. The Department of Earth Sciences (the laboratory of Palaeontology) participated from the very beginning in this experience supplying all the knowledge and the available media in order to present the history of life and the main fossil groups in an easy and accessible way to a population not familiar with the complex concepts of palaeontology, the fossil record, the evolutionary processes and mechanisms, and the details of systematics. From the moment of the inauguration of the “Museum of the Palaeozoic seas” in the small locality of Sta. Cruz de Nogueras, in the middle of the Ordovician-Devonian units, it was considered more appropriate to change the fieldtrip from Belchite to this area, as the conditions should be now more adequate for a good learning in a combined effect of fieldwork and museistics, and changing the Mesozoic for Palaeozoic fossil and stratigraphic successions. The Museum, founded recently by the good cooperation of the Townhall of the village and the laboratory of Palaeontology of the University of Zaragoza stands as one of the best examples of fruitful combination of scientific level and educational strategies in the Aragonese Community.