Yorkshire’s Earth Heritage
In June 2023, the Yorkshire Fossil Festival, Scarborough Museums & Galleries, and the University of Leeds were awarded funding by the Dynamic Collections scheme of the National Lottery Heritage Fund to run a project called YorEarth Heritage.
YorEarth Heritage was a pilot project that set out to use fossil collections to help under-represented people in Yorkshire uncover their amazing Earth heritage, and engage with it creatively. Utilizing the Scarborough Museums & Galleries’ and University of Leeds’ fossil collections, the project focussed on fossil plants and ammonites from the Yorkshire Coast and the Yorkshire Coal Measures. The aim was to show how they could connect schools and communities from West and North Yorkshire with their amazing – but often hidden – geoheritage.
As well as the three main organizations, we were lucky enough to secure the talents of Professor Geetha Upadhyaya, Visiting Professor at Leeds Beckett University and founder of Kala Sangam. Geetha agreed to be our South Asian heritage coordinator and was particularly keen to explore the way ammonite fossils connected across cultures, being known as snakestones in North Yorkshire and shaligrams in northern India and Nepal.
Many different activities took place, including schools sessions in the Rotunda Museum and Scarborough Art Gallery, community workshops in West Yorkshire, and geological training for teachers and museum staff. YorEarth Heritage focussed particularly on using Yorkshire’s fossils to better understand evolution, which is taught in Year 6 at English primary schools, as part of the Key Stage 2 Science curriculum.
We specifically chose ammonoids and plants because the goniatites and coal swamps of Carboniferous West Yorkshire changed over time into the ammonites and coniferous forests of Jurassic North Yorkshire. The fossils also have beautiful patterns and shapes, allowing workshop participants to use them as inspiration for making artworks.
We are now pulling everything together for our final report, and planning future activities. We hope that YorEarth Heritage has given ideas and information to the teachers, their pupils, the community groups, and the project team. If we can all take inspiration from the earthy, evolutionary elements of our heritage and see where it takes us, that will be a great outcome.
