BELLEFONTE AREA
SCHOOL NEWS
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Elementary Students Become Paleontologists for the Day
Bellefonte Area High School teacher , Chris Freidhoff , has always had the lifelong dream of becoming a paleontologist . Over the last few summers , he has visited Montana and worked with the DIG program to search through the sediment of the Hell Creek Formation to find fossils . The DIG program also allows for bags of sediment to be sent out nationally for others to sift through to find fossils , which is what happened this past month at Bellefonte Elementary !
The fourth and fifth grade students from Mrs . Geyer and Mrs . Whitman ’ s classes had the chance to learn with Mr . Freidhoff and work with the sediment themselves . Mr . Freidhoff guided them through working with a small sample of sediment , which they then had to identify the pieces they found , and then those pieces were sent back to the Dig Field School at the Burke Museum in Washington .
Mr . Freidhoff commented , “ With the DIG Field school experience , I get to bring my paleo-experience into the classroom and share the love of dinosaurs with elementary students in our district . Seeing the excitement in the student ' s faces as they searched through 65 million year old sediment was an awesome experience .”
Ms . D ’ Ambrosia , the STEM coach for the district , helped to coordinate this activity . Her reaction to the lesson , “ The kids had an incredible time using real-world , hands-on science , helping researchers to discover and sort microfossils . The excitement and engagement was so rejuvenating to see as an educator . Kids got to identify and sort real pieces of dinosaur bones , how cool is that ?”
Along with teaching students about paleontology , Mr . Freidhoff also has hosted several sessions for teachers to be able to experience this lesson during district-wide professional learning days . It ’ s an engaging and fun experience for all age levels . The district hopes to continue this work with others in the future to help students continue to learn about the Earth ’ s past .
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