Digging Up the Past

Campers excitedly remove their
artifacts from their midden

On Tuesday, the campers excavated middens and discovered what artifacts were hidden beneath the soil!  They recorded the location of the items using grids, and even curated their own museum with the artifacts. The campers learned the difference between archaeologists, and paleontologists and even learned some similarities!

The older campers are a little more focus on organizing their finds

Campers wear their T. Rex hats in front of our T. rex on their Museum tour. Rawr!

Another camper diligently colors in his T. rex

Wednesday was all about dinosaurs!  Campers made their own T. rex hats, and wore them around the Museum on their tour!  They then found some dinosaur footprints, and tried to uncover what story the footprints told. The older kids became paleontologists and had to use facts to uncover a dino mystery based on a real story!  They came up with a hypotheses about what happened, and as more facts were revealed, they checked to see if their hypotheses were correct!

Campers color their T. rex hats!

Campers learn about Greek Columns before building their own.  Greek Columns can even be found here in Ann Arbor!

Campers work together to engineer a
structure supported by columns

On Thursday, the campers explored Ancient Greece and saw pictures of temples all across Ancient Greece.  They campers even got to explore the Acropolis of Athens in a Minecraft world someone carefully created.  Later they built Greek Columns and tested their engineering abilities by building a structure to support as much weight as possible. And finally towards the end of their day, the campers got to see the Pharaohs planetarium show!

Campers cheer when their columns support their group's basket!

The younger groups excavated their dig site. What will they find?

Finally on Friday, the campers got to learn all about paleontology.  They played games about fossils, and learned how fossils can form (and how difficult it is for them to form!).  The campers then chose a fossil in the Hall of Evolution, and created a story about that fossil's journey.  Finally toward the end of the morning, they got to dig in their very own dig site.  They even got to keep a real fossil treasure!