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| Showing replicas at Hands on History Camp at Castillo de San Marcos |
"Historical Summer Camp Fun" may seem to be a contradiction in terms, but not with the National Park Service! For the past six summers, The National Park Service (NPS) has offered a
"Hands-on History Camp" at the
Castillo de San Marcos National Monument and a "
Hands-on-History Nature Camp" at
Fort Matanzas National Monument.
The Florida Public Archaeology Network is honored to have partnered with NPS for most of these camps. We take over one of the five days to teach the kids (9=11 years old) about Florida Archaeology. At The Castillo, we've shown the kids artifacts and replicas, made cordage and prehistoric pottery, and excavated PB&J Archaeology sites!
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| Admiring a Timucuan tool replica |
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| Campers' "prehistoric pottery" |
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| PBJ Archaeology Activity at Castillo de San Marcos |
Our day at Fort Matanzas is more water themed. After discussing archaeology and what life was like for the Timucua, the campers got to to try their hands at a variety of Tumucuan fishing technologies:
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| "Cast Netting" with hula hoops |
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| "Gigging" Swedish Fish |
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| Building fishing weirs with pop cycle sticks |
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| Testing the efficacy of said weirs with bucket tide and cheerio fish! |
For the last part of the Fort Matanzas day, we discussed underwater archaeology and boat building. The campers then got a choice: Would they rather spend their remaining 50 minutes hearing me talk OR would they rather spend that time building their own boats? (Since my underwater knowledge is rather limited I wast thankful they chose the latter option!)
The kids were given their boat building materials (egg carton parts, straw pieces, pencils, pipe cleaners, rubber bands............)
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| Boat Building Materials |
Than given a chance to float it and compete for sturdiness...
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| What floats your boat? |
Summer is now heading to a close, but check out the NPS website starting in March 2019 to find out about Hands on History Camps for next summer!
Text: Robbie Boggs, FPAN Staff
Images: FPAN and NPS Staff
