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April 09, 2007
Learning In Action on a Road Trip
Two friends of mine just had some great learning activities within the stretch of a few days. Pa , age 68, and his grandson Nick, age 12, often consider themselves the same age, and when left to their own devises, they are.
Pa and Nick took part of Nick’s Spring break to go explore a bit of Nevada. Pa’s background is in surveying, and Nick has developed an interest in mines of almost any kind-gold, salt, turquoise, silver, uranium. You name it. He’s interested in it. Off the two of them went to explore.
Nick mapped out the trip and acted as navigator. Pa drove almost as directed. I say almost because I heard from them the first evening they were gone. The reports were great as far as the trip had progressed other than Pa’s ability to do his own navigation. Remember I said left to their own devises?
Pa decided they needed to take a side road not on Nick’s planned route. It was over the old trail coming over the Sierra Nevada’s and just looked to tempting to pass up. Nick suggested that they not do it, but ever the intrepid, Pa wanted to check it out.
A few hours later after having to be pulled from a snow bank, Pa had to concede that Nick’s plan had probably been the better one.
Turning their attention from snow banks to mines was not too difficult. Along the highway were holes in rocks and hillsides where it was evident someone from years ago or even more recently had tried to find the earth’s treasures. Most looked played out before they were ever really worked. The bigger mines farther into the foothills, abandoned now, still had equipment, rusted and broken, lying beside them. The actual working mines were mostly salt, and seen from the road after their deserted predecessors, looked like a beehive of activity.
A little reading on the subject of the history of one of the gold mines came up with more than just gold. It seems that this particular mine had yielded not only gold, but a fossil of one of the largest prehistoric fish ever found.
Now, as an educator, if I was looking at this trip for its value, I would say so far, “Lots of geography including maps and terrain, great earth science activities with the maps, and wonderful science and history with the fossil find. There was also plenty of research and reading before and during the trip.” This would be a great learning activity.
For the two travelers, they’d tell me it was great fun with just enough adventure and plenty of stops to satisfy curiosity.
Guess it would please both sets of interests.
Posted by Dr Joni at April 9, 2007 09:20 PM