Museum of Moab staff members hope that Grand County students who get a chance to participate in the museum’s new Experiential Education Center program will bring a new appreciation to their summer explorations. With the new program, the museum is offering a hands-on approach to help kids understand the interconnected nature of our paleontological, anthropological, and geological resources and histories.

Teachers of kindergarten through sixth-grade classes are encouraged to bring their students in for the program. Through age-specific lesson plans, museum curator Travis Schenck and support assistant Andrea Stoughton hope to help kids understand that the museum exhibits weren’t always in such a protected environment, and that history is all around them.

Working with a group of 5- and 6-year-olds from the Moab Charter School last week, Stoughton put history into a personal context for the kids. She asked if any of them had any possession with family history, things with special value.

“I got a bike for Christmas!” a boy shouted out.

Stoughton encouraged his enthusiasm, but then redirected the question to help the students dig a little deeper.

“My mom, when I was four, gave me her specialist doll [from] when she was two,” a girl offered. “And I lost it.”

The girl stared at the ground for a moment, and the kids were quiet. Stoughton’s question apparently hit the bull’s eye – the kids were more somber, focused on the idea of lost treasure. Only now, the treasure was in a sentimental context, not an acquisitive one.

Later, Stoughton walked the students through the display area documenting the lives of the Ancient Peubloans who once lived in southeastern Utah. As the students looked at the animal effigies ancient hunters carried, or the baby carrier used by ancient mothers, the image of the lost doll helped personalize the artifacts.

Meanwhile, Schenck was busy personalizing a tyrannosaurus Rex for another group. He started with the fanciful kids’ book “Tyrannosaurap” to engage the kids. The story gave life to the plaster casts of bones and prints around them.

Stoughton and Schenck explained the importance of respecting artifacts in their contexts, and the necessity for leaving them in place for professional analysis. Stoughton was respectful when students offered stories of their family artifact collections, but she emphasized that the kids should share their discoveries with archeologists, not hoard them in personal collections. She also gently informed them of their special responsibilities on public land.

The kids seemed to be feeling some special reverence for the artifacts. As Schenck oversaw a mini-excavation in a small sandbox with hidden plaster casts of dinosaur bones, one boy got a little too excited, and he broke a claw off a casting. He looked stricken, and it took Schenck a few moments to convince him it was just a mock-up.

The museum has also been adapted to encourage appropriate interactivity while preserving invaluable resources. Small signs with a picture of a little hand inform kids it’s okay to touch a particular display, allowing them numerous activities to fully indulge their curiosities.

The EEC program mixes hands-on projects, such as making one of those animal effigies, with Socratic discussions of the museum displays. Stoughton and Schenck gather the kids around, and they draw explanations from the students.

“Does anybody know what a hogan is?” Stoughton primed the class.

“I know what a hobo is!” a boy offered.

Stoughton restated her question, patiently waiting as the kids sorted out the answer for themselves.

Through these approaches, Stoughton and Schenck say, the program introduces kids to every aspect of Grand County history. Students will follow a timeline from prehistory through recent history, and they’ll connect it to their lives in Moab. One display, a recently discovered basket, highlights the finders as much as the find—a trio of Grand County High School students made the discovery in the ‘90s, and the kids seem to get a mini Indiana Jones thrill from this tale of junior archeology.

The program is extensive, covering much of the scope of the museum through a number of age-specific curricula. They’ve divided the museum into four centers, with lessons from 15 minutes to 40 minutes, including games, to create two-hour presentations.

The museum has already signed up a number of teachers for the spring program, and other interested teachers can contact Stoughton or Schenck at the museum, 259-7985.