Monday, July 29, 2013

Amazing Animals 1 Questions


Monday, July 29:
On Monday we will learn all about habitats.

Ask me about the camouflage mural I made with the other campers, and how I made my insect blend in with the habitat!

Ask me about the habitat diorama I made!


Tuesday, July 30:
On Tuesday we will take a trip to the arb (weather permitting).

Ask me about playing Oh, Deer!

Ask me about my favorite part of the filed trip!


Wednesday, July 31:
On Wednesday we will learn all about birds.

Ask me about the live birds I saw from Leslie Science and Nature Center!

Ask me about some of the obstacles that birds face in the wild.


Thursday, August 1:
On Thursday we will learn all about nocturnal animals.

Ask me how bats use echolocation.

Ask me what other kinds of animals are nocturnal.  

Friday, August 2:
On Friday we will learn about animal adaptations, endangered species, and animal tracks.

Ask me about the plaster cast of an animal track I made!

Ask me about why some animals are endangered.

Ecology in Your Backyard 1 Questions

Monday, July 29
Monday we are talking about ecosystems and what types of animals live in them.

Ask me about what kind of ecosystem I illustrated on my poster!

Ask me about the habitat game we played, and what kind of animals live in which ecosystems!

Tuesday, July 30
On Tuesday we will talk about watersheds and water quality. We will do activities to help us understand how water flows and why pollutants are dangerous.

Ask me how we built our model watershed, and what kind of pollutants we introduced to the water flow. Where did these pollutants come from?

Ask me about the stream sampling activity we did, and how we measured macroinvertebrates in the stream to assess the water quality.

Wednesday, July 31
On Wednesday we are taking a field trip to the Arboretum and doing a bird behavior scavenger hunt.

Ask me what types of bird behaviors we saw!

Thursday, August 1
On Thursday we will talk about flowers, specifically the flowers growing in our Butterfly Garden!

Ask me about the different parts of a flower and what each part does!

Ask me what types of flowers I put in my Butterfly Garden Field Guide!

Friday, August 2
Friday will be all about animal and ecosystem diversity and the impact of humans on habitats, with a special craft for the Butterfly Garden!

Ask me about the diversity game we played, and what we learned about how animals have adaptations that help them survive in their environment!

Ask me about the shrinking habitat game we played, and what kind of resources disappeared when the developers showed up?

Ask me what kind of designs I put on the stepping stone for the Butterfly Garden!

Friday, July 26, 2013

Paleontology Rocks 2

We had a blast learning all about dinosaurs, fossils, and prehistoric life at this week of camp: Paleontology Rocks!  On Monday, we learned the rules of what makes something a dinosaur, and also got to see the museum’s record holders for largest, smallest, fastest and smartest dinosaurs!  We got to compare ourselves to the lengths of different dinosaurs, and also started our very own dinosaur sculptures!

Taking a look at T-Rex's skull!




Tuesday was all about life after the dinosaurs, and we learned about a few post-dino creatures like whales and mastodons.  We also learned about dinosaur extinction and what sorts of things animals need to survive. 

Checking out the Maiacetus cast!

Playing the extinction game!

Testing our dinosaur knowledge with the dinosaur clever catch.























































On Wednesday we traveled far back in time, taking a tour of the “Life Through the Ages” exhibit on the second floor.  We learned about trilobites, an early marine invertebrate, and some of us made trilobite masks, while others made trilobite models.  We also got to uncover trilobites from mud!
Getting a bit messy to uncover our trilobites!



Thursday was all about looking for dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures!  We did an ABC scavenger hunt on the second floor and put together dinosaur puzzles.  We made film strips of snapshots from the last 54 million years, and also painted our dinosaur sculptures from Monday!
Searching the second floor for scavenger hunt clues!






















On Friday we learned about fossils.  We made stratigraphy tubes and and excavated fossils from strata cups to learn about what kinds of fossils are found in which layers of rock.  We also played a game that took us through the many steps and millions of years it takes for something to become a fossil.
Excavating fossils out of our strata-cups



Playing a fossil game!


Learning more about stratigraphy and making stratigraphy tubes!





It was a great week of camp for all of us!  We hope to see new and old faces next week for Amazing Animals!

Archaeology Quest 2

 We had a great second week of Archaeology camp here at the Museum! We started the week with some underwater archaeology. We did a demo to help us understand the layers of the past, where we stacked books to represent different layers of the ground and put pennies among the layers to represent artifacts, and how old they are in relation to the different layers. Then we did some underwater excavation. We used paintbrushes and straws to carefully dig up artifacts that were buried under layers of sand and water. Finally we looked at the effects of water on artifacts over time. We put a sponge, a piece of paper and a coin in water and studied how they changed after being in water for 24 hours. These objects represented types of materials typically found on a ship: metal, organic materials that absorb water, and paper from documents. It helped us to understand that artifacts found underwater may be rusted, ripped or disintegrated and this affects the archaeological process. We also made Borax crystals by letting pipe cleaners soak in a water and borax solution. We saw crystals form all along the pipe cleaner, showing us a similar process to what happens when metal soaks in salt water for many, many years.
Underwater excavation!
Soaking some materials in water to see what happens after 24 hours

Borax crystals

 On Tuesday,  we took our first of two trips to the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. We saw a demonstration about Egypt, and learned all about the mummification process. We talked about what kinds of people or animals were mummified, what kind of materials and substances were used to dry out the body, and what kind of decorations the mummies were buried with. We even got to see some x-rays of mummies so we could understand what lies inside the wrappings. Then we took a tour of the galleries and saw some cool ancient Egyptian artifacts, including a very well-preserved coffin and even the mummy of a child! After our tour we came back to one of the classrooms and made Egyptian headdresses and crowns that we got to take home!


Looking at an ancient coffin at the Kelsey Museum

Looking at mummy artifacts

The headdresses we made!























On Wednesday we talked more about Egypt. We talked more about mummies and learned about the excavation of King Tut, and why it was so important in the archaeology world. We made Egyptian pyramids and even got to make clay sarcophagi and other treasures to put inside. Then we learned about hieroglyphics and got to write hieroglyphic messages on papyrus sheets. They got to take both of these home- so make sure you ask to see them!
Making pyramids




Hieroglyphics


Making a mummy to put in the pyramid

 On Thursday we returned to the Kelsey Museum for some activities about the ancient Olympic games and other ancient toys. First we got a demonstration about the Olympics and what kind of sports were played at them. We saw a model discus and javelin, and learned that the winners didn't get medals like they do today- they just got a wreath of olive leaves and fame! We also learned that all ancient athletes competed without clothes on- which the kids thought was hilarious. Then we got to see some non-Olympic toys that children (or adults!) of ancient civilizations would have played with, like dolls, spinning tops, and rolling horse carriages. We got to play a game of knucklebones, too! Then we each got to make some cool arm bands to wear!
Looking at Olympic artifacts!


Watching a demonstration of a spinning top

Playing knucklebones!

Playing with toys


Playing with a spinning top




Making our wristbands






















We ended the week with an archaeology dig.We had to grid and map the site in our journals, and collect the artifacts to analyze. We had to use our knowledge to figure out what type of setting the artifacts came from and what kind of activities or civilizations they portrayed. We also got to look around the museum for the oldest and newest object in the museum! Finally, we got to pretend we were archaeologists 1,000 years in the future, looking at artifacts from today. We had to come up with some pretty creative ideas to figure out what the obscure objects could have been used for!!
Making the grid at the archaeology grid site

Looking at some artifacts as if we were future archaeologists!











We had a very fun week at camp and can't wait for our next theme: Ecology!!! We hope to see some old faces next week as we explore ecosystems, habitats and more!