By Heather McDonald

As a child, Alexis Hollander collected as many rocks as she could find that looked like they resembled fossils. She jokes that the several drawers’ full at home could come close to being in their own museum. So it is no surprise that today she finds herself in a museum surrounded by fossils she is helping identify.

The UWSP Museum of Natural History will host its ninth annual Museum Crawl from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, April 7.

“I think fossils are super cool,” the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP) junior said. “I think I was 8 when I asked my grandma to start my real rock collection for Christmas, and that was the best gift I ever got.

“I can’t believe I’m working with fossils that are so old and collected in the United States,” she said.

Hollander hopes to carry that passion and curiosity to others during the UWSP Museum of Natural History’s ninth annual Museum Crawl.

The event, which this year focuses on paleontology – ancient plant, insect and fish fossils rather than dinosaurs – runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, April 7, at the museum. There is no cost to attend, and though the focus is not on dinosaurs, replicas of the extinct animals can be viewed in the museum.

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