Last week, I got to discover the educational branch of the Natural History museum. The director of this section is actually a fellow History major and it was cool to see another non-paleontologist in the building. My duties were split between two branches within the educational department. During the summer, the museum always hosts elementary age Paleontology Camp where kids get to dig, plaster cast, and learn about the site. I’ve been looking forward to the camp because kids are right up my alley.
The group of 19 kids were really excited to learn and talk even when they weren’t supposed to. College is really the only time in life you can entirely escape children and jumping back into the rhythm of youth education was a little difficult but ultimately rewarding. I taught them a lot of little games to try and burn energy between activities (and I’m really proud that they enjoyed them so much)
The top group is playing war while the bottom two kids are playing ultimate Rock Paper Scissors. Seeing how the research that the lab and field are gathering can be applied and taught to children really shows the impact the museum is making. Now for the second half of the education wing, I helped with summer day camp groups that came to tour the site. The general set up for a group is to split the kids (generally a group of 70) into three groups. One group goes on a traditional tour, one group goes through the exhibit, and the final group gets to participate in a picking activity.
We had a group come through every day last week and I helped guide them through the activities depending on the group. Generally, the groups were well behaved and apt to learn but some groups were just wild. I really enjoyed participating in this part of the museum as well because the education department really seems to be the branch that makes the work going on in the museum accessible to the public, which I think is endlessly important.