Hello all, this entry of the blog comes to you from Edmond and Phoebe, two students at the TBI Origins Field School. On Monday (the day after we had completed the Great Grevy's Rally) we all flew in two groupsout to TBI Turkwel, Turkana County. Once at the Mpala airstrip, the tiny [...]
The students spent their weekend at Mpala Research Centre taking part in a unique community science research project. The Grevy’s zebra is a distinctive and endangered species of zebra found in Kenya, but its exact population size is unknown. As a threatened species, knowing how many Grevy’s zebra remain, and their distribution and movements [...]
The first week of the semester kicked off with the ecology module at Mpala Research Centre (MRC) led by Dr Dino Martins, who is one of the world’s leading experts in East African ecology. The plants and animals found across the MRC are highly diverse and give students the opportunity to understand how topography, [...]
Happy new year! I hope you all had peaceful holidays. The spring 2024 TBI field school is off to a great start. The students arrived in Nairobi on the 18th of January and we spent the first two nights at the amazing Wildebeest Eco camp in Nairobi. There the students had a chance to [...]
Between September 24 and October 7, the Turkana Basin Institute site at Ileret hosted for the first time an astronomy school. This school provided training in astronomy and data reduction techniques to 10 South-African and 9 Kenyan students. The initiative is a new collaboration between the Development in Africa with Radio Astronomy (DARA) project [...]
We’ve had an incredible first few weeks at TBI Turkwel! After our time at Mpala, we’ve hit the ground running and have been really busy visiting the incredible sites in the Turkana Basin and enjoying life at TBI! As part of the Environments, Ecosystems and Evolution course taught by Dr. Nicholas Taylor, we created toilet [...]
Welcome to the field school where we study more than just rocks ;) Are you wondering what engineering students do here at TBI? If so, this is the post for you! I’m writing to give you a little insight on the work we do. But first, let me introduce myself and my peer: My name [...]
Jambo! The Summer 2023 Field Schools are underway!! This year, we have both an Origins Field School and a Global Innovation Field School, being led by Dr. Nicholas Taylor and Acacia Leakey respectively, with Teaching Assistant Medina Lubisia. We arrived in Turkana earlier today, having spent an amazing few days at Mpala Research Center and [...]
Hello again! I’m Ian, and I’m back this week with Owich to talk about the beginning of our last module, Prehistoric Archaeology, taught by Prof. Sonia Harmand. Dr. Sonia Harmand talking the students through the stratigraphy near the Nadung'a sites. We’re now in our last two weeks here at TBI, and it really [...]
We arrived back to TBI Turkwel Campus from Nariokotome on Tuesday, tired but happy. The day was spent resting and preparing for the final presentations in our archeology module. By Wednesday, everyone was back to full gear and we spent most of the day working on our presentations and the final tasks of the module. [...]
Hello everyone my name is Flor Perez and I am from New York. I graduated from Stony Brook University in 2020. I am one of the 2 students who will be completing the graduate certificate in human origins program at the end of this field school. On top of earning the graduate certificate you earn [...]
Hello, I am Tom Otube, an environmental science graduate from Kabarak University. This week we started our Human Evolution module which is taught by Dr. Carrie Mongle and Dr. Louise Leakey. On the first day, Dr. Mongle took us through the course objectives and an overview of human evolution by providing the historical context of [...]
Hello! My name is Patricia Nyaga, I just completed my undergraduate degree, Bachelor of Arts in History and Archaeology from Maseno University, expecting to graduate in December 2022. This being our second week studying Paleontology, our main focus was on the paleontological field methods. We headed to the Napudet hills for a two-day camping trip [...]
Hello! I’m Ian McMahon, a graduate student here at TBI. I graduated from SUNY Potsdam in 2020 with a degree in archaeology, specializing in human evolution and origins. This week, we started our paleontology module, taught by Dr. Ellen Miller, learning about the MIocene vertebrates of the Turkana Basin. The Miocene lasted from 23.03 to [...]
Hello! My name is Owich and I am an anthropology graduate from the University of Nairobi. We began our second week of geology with a morning classroom session with Dr. Gathogo taking us through the short Cretaceous window, and reconstruction of the Turkana basin geography and particularly the Cenozoic (Age of mammals) rich-sediments. In summary, [...]
Hello, my name is Amelia and I am currently majoring in Anthropology through SUNY Albany in New York. This week we dove into our geology module! We started off by learning the basics of using both the Brunton compass, along with more modern technology by using a handheld GPS system linked to satellites for navigation. [...]
Paivaa/hello! Welcome to another installment of TBI’s field school blog! This weeks blog post is written by me, Onni Purhonen. I’m a biology student from the University of Helsinki in Finland, currently in my second year of studies and specializing in ecology and evolutionary biology. The current field school-module on ecology with Dr. Dino J. [...]
Personal journal excerpt: It is Tuesday evening; I am relaxing in Mpala research center reminiscing a productive day. I am inspired to write a short account of the ant-acacia relationship we learned earlier today: Picture an ant, One ferocious and alert, She tends and serves, To protect her reserves! Picture another ant, One [...]
Jambo! Welcome to the TBI Origins Field School blog for Fall 2022! My name is Medina Lubisia, the Resident Academic Director for the Fall Field School. I will be accompanying students throughout the field school as they undertake five modules that will be credited for their Fall semester. The students arrived safely in Nairobi and [...]
In the final week of the TBI Spring Field School semester, Dr. Lisa Hildebrand took the students through the cultural developments of early herders in the Turkana Basin during the Mid-Holocene period. As of today, pastoralism remains the key economic activity in the region as a response to the harsh ecological conditions, and in addition, [...]