Digging in the Dirt
Today was a great day --- FIELD TRIP!! 25 students and 5 teachers armed with picks, chisels, hammers, goggles, and gloves headed into some rock walls that contained Herkimer diamonds and trilobite and other fossils. The rain held out, and the temps stayed cool for a few hours of searching, exploring, and enjoying nature. I find that the best learning comes from hands-on outdoor exploration with kids. It forces them to slow down and look, ask questions, discover, and enjoy the world they live in. For the most part, they were focused and excited, and some became experts on looking for vugs in the dolostone. A few of the girls and I headed to a huge area that contained many rocks with fossils. We climbed up and down huge boulders, looking at the fossils from millions of years ago. We also found the skeletal remains of things that I did not recognize but took back with me anyway. At the end after lunch, we got a tour of the cement factory, complet...