“I Love to do This Work”: From Curiosity to Catalog

Tabor Academy senior Janiss Limpeanjud has always loved earth science and planetary science. She came to Tabor as a Royal Thai Scholar, and she arrived in Marion fully devoted to her field of study. “Earth science makes me want to keep digging deeper,” she says. “I think it’s cool that we can see the path of the Earth and reconstruct what the Earth’s environment was like millions of years ago. I love to do this work.”

Limpeanjud has been able to immerse herself in this academic passion—and give back to the Tabor community and academic program—through an independent project she’s engaged in over the past two trimesters. Under the supervision of Archivist Sophie Arnfield, and with the support of Interim Dean of Academics Matt Voci and Chair of the Science Department Tamar Cunha, Limpeanjud has spent time inventorying, examining, cataloging, and displaying the Earth and Marine Science Collection, a collection of hundreds of minerals, rocks, and fossils owned by the school. She works out of a small office in the Stroud Academic Center, surrounded by specimens on shelves, in cupboards and cabinets, and inside boxes and stacked plastic bins. As her project reaches its end, she’s redesigning a display of some of the specimens in six display cases that line the hallway in the Math Science Wing of the Academic Center. The current display is captivating but includes no information on the specimens. The redesigned display will include information on the specimens that will encourage students to learn from and engage with the exhibit.

The Earth and Marine Science Collection came to Tabor in 2001 and 2002 as gifts of James Benenson Jr. P’00 and Ms. Susan Brailove and included specimens formerly in the collection of Ms. Janet C. Brown. Planning for Tabor's new Marine and Nautical Science Center and a major renovation to the Math Science Wing were both underway when the collection was donated, allowing for display cases to be included in both buildings featuring parts of the collection. Limpeanjud has created a catalog that documents each specimen in the collection. Each specimen has an entry: She records the name, physical properties, and chemical properties of each specimen, along with a photo. She assigns each specimen a number to help future Seawolves identify it.

Limpeanjud didn’t know Tabor had the collection when she arrived; a trip with the Outing Club connected her to what has become a fundamental academic experience. “I always carry a hand lens, a compass, and a field notebook with me,” Limpeanjud says, spreading these tools across the desk in the office where the collection is held. “When I was on the Outing Club trip, I saw a rock that I thought was interesting, and I was trying to reconstruct the paleoenvironment in my head. So, I took out my hand lens to observe the rock more closely, and Ms. Arnfield saw and asked me what I was doing.” 

“The funny thing about us connecting,” explains Sophie Arnfield, “is that I had just been brought in on a discussion about a significant part of the collection that remained in storage. Some of it has been on display since the Academic Center opened, and some of it has always been on display in the MANS, and some of it was in storage. When I noticed Janiss looking at the rocks with the Outing Club, we had a serendipitous conversation about the collection she already knew from the display cases, and the fact that there was much more that was not on view.” That conversation led to the formation of Limpeanjud’s independent project. 

Limpeanjud says she spends “a lot of time” on the collection, including time spent after the academic day and on weekends. “I've learned a lot from this project because rocks in Thailand and rocks in America are totally different,” she says. “We have very different paleoenvironments. Also, I've been able to see real fossils instead of looking things up in a textbook. I've learned how to document information and make it easy for people that who are not scientists to understand it easily.”

Limpeanjud is also proud of what she’s leaving behind for other Tabor students. “I’m going to rearrange the display cases to encourage other students to learn more about earth science,” she says. She shows off two of her favorite specimens, both fossils: First, a section of the jaw of a cave bear dating from the Ice Age. Limpeanjud explains that the teeth and jaw that jut out of the encasing rock are in very good shape. “We can use the teeth to identify the species of mammal,” she explains. “We can also study the evolution of the species; look at how the jaw in the fossil is concave, and how that’s different from bears today. How has the shape changed, and what does that tell us about how the bear has evolved? We can use fossils to reconstruct the paleoclimate and environment and learn more about how they lived.”

Second, Limpeanjud turns to a large, complete fossil of a crinoid, a marine invertebrate. “When we study geology, we look at the strata of the rock and can date them,” Limpeanjud explains. “We can also use fossils to date the rock. And, this specimen is the complete organism, not just a part of it. Because of that, we know the water it was resting in was still and not moving much.”

Limpeanjud is grateful for the collection of specimens at Tabor. “It’s fabulous,” she says. “We can study everything we need to know from these specimens because of their quality, their wide range, and all the different categories. It’s pretty, it’s beautiful, and it’s mind-blowing.” 

Limpeanjud plans to continue her education at University of California San Diego, where she will focus on earth science and planetary science. Meanwhile, Tamar Cunha emphasizes the importance of Limpeanjud’s contributions to Tabor’s next generation of students. “I’ve seen the methodical way that she has been analyzing each sample,” she says. “Janiss has an organized approach, and has been able to share information, whether it's the chemical composition and standard tests, but also caring about the photography that we have. She’s creating a good digital record of everything. She’s getting us to think about how we could bring this collection into our classes a little bit more, rather than having it be just displayed.”