We began our day at Caron Park by mapping all of the new trails. We were explorers in a world new to us. Mapping is a very challenging activity. Our initial attempts were very rough and students often said, "I thought I was here...but then I ended up being way over there." As the day went on we shared strategies and ideas that helped our maps become more accurate: use landmarks, hold the map in the same direction you're heading, combine your work with another map maker's, re-visit the same area several times.
We are now working on final versions of our maps at school. It was exciting to hear students exclaim, "Oh! I see where we were now!" as they put the pieces of their earlier work together. Their map making parallels exactly the experience of early map makers in America -- relative size is very difficult to judge but waterways provided key landmarks (and a chance to be more accurate. Today we looked at a map of the Americas from the 1540s. That's almost fifty years after the first European explorers began to map the area and yet, the shape of the continents is still very distorted. After seeing that, students were very excited by their comparably much more accurate maps.
The second part of our day was spent "settling" the area that we had explored in the morning. Students chose settlement sites, gathered natural resources and traded with each other. I established a small town by the water fall where traders could gather and where they could trade me for the use of various tools. As an extra challenge, I had certain cultural expectations that students had to figure out before they were able to communicate with me. If I was not greeted by a raised elbow I was offended. And, in order to signal they were talking, students had to put their hands on their stomachs (and transfer that hand to their heads to await a reply.) After a few frustrating minutes, several students figured out the code. It was interesting to see how they used that knowledge -- some wanted to share it widely, others wanted to keep it for their settlement so they would have a trade advantage.
Two groups traded for matches and, with close adult supervision, built and maintained fires for the afternoon. Other settlements began to visit the fire settlements and use the fire to roast hickory nuts and dry out clay pots. We didn't have leaf pots to boil water in but we did successfully boil water in popcorn bags!
The Rock!
The clay for the pots came from a giant clay wall (next to which one group had wisely established their settlement.) Students also made plaques and creatures from the clay. Different levels of quality were established and the Herons soon created their own vocabulary to differentiate the sandy clay from the pure clay.
The cephalopod!
Oh! And we had some great geology lessons along the way including finding a cephalopod over a meter long and visiting a giant glacial erratic that might have been shot through the air from Fairibault when a pressurized river burst through the wall of a glacier about 10,000 years ago. Not bad for a days work.
What an amazing day of adventure and discovery! Thank you for persisting in making it happen!
Posted by: Cathy | 10/19/2016 at 11:30 AM