Digging for Dinosaur Bones in the Badlands of Alberta

Join MOI on a 3-day expedition

ScenarioYou and some of your coworkers at MultiOptics Industries (MOI) have been assigned an unusual team-building expedition: digging for dinosaur bones in the Badlands of Alberta. On this three-day excursion, your team will be working to beat the team from your company’s friendly competitor,Durnforth Technologies (DT). At your first MOI “Paleo-team” meeting you all look at each other in deep consternation. Not one of you has had any paleontology experience—digging for dinosaur bones has never been within the range ofanyone’s life goals, so none of you know where to begin. You all brainstorm ideas: where do we go? How to we find good sites to dig? What tools do we need? You all quickly realize that your team’s best approach to the challenge would be to consult and maybe even hire an experienced field guide who could take your team out to thebest location for digging on the Badlands and provide guidance in finding and delicately removing dinosaur bones and small fossils. After doing research on the Internet, you realize that Wendy Sloboda would be the person to ask to be your team’s guide. She has been digging for fossils and dinosaur bones since she was a child and just recently found a new species of horned dinosaurs andhas worked with David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum in excavating the site to retrieve those bones.Your team decides that the best way to approach Ms Sloboda would be to send an emailrequest to ask about her willingnessto be your team’s guide. Youalso decide that you will have to ask about the equipmentand other supplies that wouldbe needed on the expedition, should she agree to be your team’s guide.

TEC400 Email AssignmentInstructor: Brendan RobertInyour email, you must be sure to enquire about the guide’s daily rates, pick up and drop offlocations, package rates, equipment provided, available dates (your company wants your team to go on the excursion in October so pick reasonable dates), personal safety must-haves, water supply,and transportation from the Calgary airport. While your company can supply rock picks, chisels, chipping hammers, sieves, and hammer sheaths, you also must find out about the tools the guide will provide. Your team will be out on site for three days. You will have to find out about the equipment needed to provide the team with field lodging and food. Will the guide provide the food or should you order specially packaged food from Mountain Equipment Coop? What else do you need to know?