The sense of accomplishment–and promise of things to come–was palpable last week as more than 40 students from high schools across New York City graduated from the Museum’s Science Research Mentoring Program (SRMP), which pairs Museum researchers with New York City teens for two years of intensive research on an original project.

“Being in this program helped me pick my major,” said Anastasia Bromberg, a senior at Brooklyn Technical High School who studied the diversity of snakes in Southeast Asia and will be attending the University of Miami in the fall. “I was thinking about psychology but now I know I want to be a researcher in marine biology. This program cemented that.”

Fossil preparation requires an uncommon degree of adaptability and patience. Museum preparators bring to the task diverse sets of skills from such backgrounds as art, paleontology, and archaeology. They generally learn their craft on the job, drawing from related fields such as object conservation to adapt modern glues, solvents, and other archival materials to stabilize fragile areas or repair damage.

Watch as Justy Alicea, a preparator at the American Museum of Natural History, works on a specimen and offers a tour of the Museum’s fossil preparation lab. And for more about fossil preparation, read this story, which originally appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of the Members’ magazine Rotunda.

A special specimen table featuring items from the Museum’s world-famous dinosaur collection will be traveling to the Fanwood Street Fair and Craft Show in downtown Fanwood this Sunday, June 12, from 11 am to 5 pm.

Jonah Choiniere, a scientist from the Museum’s Division of Paleontology, will be on hand with touchable specimens, including dinosaur teeth and claws; “prehistoric poop,” (fossilized dung known as coprolite); a horn dinosaur arm bone; dinosaur skin impressions; shark teeth; and more.