On Jan. 18, Colorado Mountain College anthropology instructor Sandy Jackson was appointed by the Snowmass Village town council to the Ice Age Discovery Committee. The new team is charged with advising the town on how to best promote its new attraction, the recent discovery of mammoth, mastodon and other Ice Age mammal fossils.
Dr. Kirk Johnson, one of the chief scientists from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science who was closely involved in the excavation, will also serve on the Snowmass Village committee. One of its primary considerations will be how to best develop and deliver educational programs on the fossil finds to a wide range of audiences, including locals and tourists alike.
In her application for the committee, Jackson said, “The Snowmass Village finds offer an exceptional opportunity for CMC and the Town of Snowmass Village to collaborate with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Together, we can present educational programs of national significance.”
Jackson has worked for Colorado Mountain College for 20 years – first as the associate director of the 15-week field course, Outdoor Semester in the Rockies, and currently as adjunct professor of anthropology in Glenwood Springs and Carbondale. She was named the college-wide Adjunct Faculty of the Year in 2008.
The opportunity for field study is an important part of Jackson’s courses. Each year, she and Dr. Jim Campbell lead a unique, permit-access-only field course through the remote Grand Gulch, Utah, area which contains petroglyphs and hundreds of archaeological sites, including cliff dwellings and artifacts from different societies, such as the Anasazi, who lived there.
Read about Sandy’s class visit last fall to the Ziegler Reservoir dig site in the November eNews story and her recent CMC Corner column about the fossil discoveries.