As I mentioned in the previous post, we had a fossil dig in our sand box in the back yard on Wednesday. It was a beautiful, cool, fall-like day on Wednesday, ideal weather for an outdoor science experiment.
Since Anderson is studying fossils, I took him outside with containers of old playdough, a large spoon, salad tongs, and a cookie sheet. We explored our woods looking for objects that we could imprint in the playdough. This would demonstrate how an object can leave its mark in soil and rock that then hardens and can be studied thousands of years later. We found acorns, pine needles, pine cones, mushrooms, sticks, a snail, and leaves. We rolled out our playdough and placed each item firmly into it, leaving a clearly visible, distinct imprint. We then allowed the playdough to harden.
Next, I took several of those objects and buried them in our sandbox. Anderson had to carefully dig to find each of the objects without damaging them during his excavation. This demonstrated to him how scientists must be very careful, working tediously to recover fossils without damaging them.
Although we had plenty of unwanted help from our Golden Retriever, Hampton, and even though Bennett had a difficult time understanding why he couldn't just run his large truck all over the sandbox while "Bubba" was digging, we had a good time. Just being outside with my boys, basking in warm sunshine and cool breezes, was a gift to this teacher.
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