Introduction Part 02 - Motivations and Inspirations

Continuing with the introduction process of this blog this post will focus on my motivations and inspirations for this project; without wasting much time:

01-Motivations:

   The "paleontology lab" of my institutions is very small; it technically does not exist and fossils are housed together with the sedimentology and mineralogy collections of the university. I heard quite a few  colleagues saying they wanted to work with paleontology but gave up because of the size of the laboratory and lack of perspective for the future. This seems to be a recurring theme in other universities, even those with big labs and world-class researchers, with few graduation students choosing paleontology as their research area.

   I imagine this is not exclusive to Brazil and in many other places people gave up on working with science based on lack of perspective for future/success. And this is one of the prime motivations I'm launching this project, reach the maximum number of people especially young paleontology enthusiasts and try inspiring then to follow a career on the area (hence why this is in English not in Portuguese).

   Because of this, I proposed earlier in the year to my boss if she could let me teach and assume some classes about paleontology, with the objective of trying to pass my passion to those students and  understand the value of our work and want to preserve the rich Brazilian fossiliferous record. I still have yet to lesson my first class but together with my boss we gave a small speech and convinced 6 students to follow and have an experience working with us, giving me even more support and desire for making this blog.
   Summarizing I wanna make people valorize the field of paleontology and inspire some to work in the are, I'll only have access to 30-40 students each semester doing this only in college but the internet can spread this message to a larger level, reason for the existence of this blog.

02-Inspirations:

   The idea of making a blog/page for scientific talk is not unprecedented; there is Witton's Blog; Motimer's Theropod Database; Cau's Theropoda; Wedel's, Taylor's and Naish's SVP-PW or Naish Tetrapod Zoology. All of those have their importance and are the inspiration for the layout and content of this blog; but not direct inspiration for me to make move and inaugurate this page. This honor goes to some of my professors that by their work and are my inspiration for this work:

• Camila Neves Silva: my adviser/supervisor/boss (I don't know the correct terminology) for the opportunity of working with her and giving me all the support I need for starting this kind of project. Coincidentally we both got convinced that we need more work done in education about paleontology independently, I hope our work in class can indeed catch more to our boat.

• Roberto Juinio Pedroso Dias: he ministered to me the Protozoa subject; lets be honest it is not the most exciting subject for someone that loves dinosaurs. But he is so in love with his work and me me also like Protozoans (I still prefer my dinosaurs). You proved to me that a good and passionate teacher can have a large positive influence in his students, you are my inspiration for teaching and hence one of the main inspiration for this work.

• Larisse Faroni Perez: though we work with very different subjects (she works with polychaetes) she is my career inspiration. She studied this group since her graduation and with dedication during years she presented the best student work in International Polychaetes Conference in 2016 getting recognition of all researches she admire since her graduation. I wanna be just like you when "I grow up"; when I get the same honer in SVP-202X I promise I'll remember of you. (Hope we can be friends now)

You are kind of the "parents" of this project so I wanna at least have a part of it dedicated to saying thanks to you.