on display in the museum's exhibits. Approximately half of these items are fossils dating back to the Cretaceous period. The majority of these fossils originate from Alberta, with approximately 85 per cent of the fossils from the province being collected from the museum's fieldwork. In addition to the Cretaceous fossils of Alberta, the museum also holds a number of fossils from the Palaeocene of Alberta, the Palaeozoic of the Canadian Arctic, and in the Palaeozoic, Triassic, and Early Cretaceous of British Columbia. Besides fieldwork, the museum has also acquired items for its collection through a variety of other means, including donations, exchanges, purchases, salvage operations of industrial excavations, and from palaeontologists archiving their works at the museum. Most of the specimens that were purchased were acquired in the early 1980s, when the institution was provided a large acquisition budget in preparation for its opening. Approximately 3,000 specimens are added to the collection annually. Programs Guided tours of the surrounding Midland Provincial Park are offered by the museum staff. The museum also operate several outreach programs, providing students hands-on field training, and conducting several "pay-to-dig" programs in the Drumheller area, where members of the public participate in bonebed excavation. The museum has a suite of distance learning programs, providing educational programming to students. The museum operates a casting and molding program where it creates replicas of specimens from its own collections, providing them for use to other museums. Research The museum research program has a broad mandate to document and analyze geological and palaeontological history, with reference to Alberta. The museum's research program includes a palaeontological research group, as well as a rotating roster of postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. Palaeontological technicians of the museum assist, or oversee fieldwork operations; as well as prepare fossils for exhibits, or research. In 2015, the museum's group of palaeontological technicians had collectively over 150 years of cumulative experience. Although formally not employed for the purposes of research, palaeontological technicians have performed independent, or collaborative research projects at the museum in the past. The majority of the research papers authored by members of the museum's research program is devoted to vertebrates, with its members having published less 40 papers on macro plants, palynomorphs, and invertebrates as of 2015. Findings from the research program are regularly incorporated into the museum's exhibits, and educational outreach programs. The museum's research team was initially founded in the early 1980s,