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What we learn from cave paintings

One of my 6th grade projects was making a simulated cave painting on a brown paper bag. I also had to make a paint brush with natural materials. The stories of cave paintings were first discovered in Lascaux , France in September 1940 by four teenagers - Marcel Rauidat, Jacqes Marsal, Georges Agnel, and Simon Coencas - and Marsal's dog, Robot. The boys heard about an old legend about tunnel that ran under the Vezere River which was connected to the Castle of Montignac. The drawings on cave walls had people and animals. The animals were horses, bison, mammoth, ibex and more. Imagine how exciting this discovery was for these teenagers. It was like looking at a giant journal on the walls of a cave. It tells us a bit about what the people back then hunted and what they ate. This is how I made my cave painting - I first cut a brown paper bag open and pretended that it was the cave wall. I then took beets, a vegetable that most kids love :-) I boiled the beets in water to...
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Mummies at The Met

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Do you want to know more about mummies? Well, The Metropolitan Museum in New York City has answers! Keep reading to find out... Not just for the cats! The sarcophagus is a coffin that was used by ancient Egyptians to store mummies. So how does one go about examining mummies without opening the sarcophagus? A CAT scan is an X-Ray machine that is used in medicine. Some smart people figured out that you could also use it to study mummies. The sarcophagus is put into the CAT scan machine, and voila - an image of the mummy is seen on a computer that is hooked up to the CAT scan machine. The mysterious curse of the pharaoh Many explorers opened King Tut's tomb but then met with mysterious tragedies. Is there really a curse if you open a tomb? Or is there a scientific explanation. Perhaps old air in tombs contains something that is toxic to humans. The curse of the pharaohs continues to remain a mystery.  An interesting tidbit about a guy called Nesiamun A mummy that I found re...
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Glass Beach, California- Nature's Recycled Art

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A couple of years ago I visited a most unusual beach. Glass Beach is located along the rocky coastline of Northern California. A long time ago, people threw their garbage over the cliffs and the garbage fell on the beach. Even old and broken down cars went over the edge! Over time, the artistry and healing power of nature took over. Waves cleaned up the beach leaving behind just the glass. The waves eroded the glass over the years. If not for erosion, you would been walking on sharp glass! The most common colors of smooth eroded glass you can find on Glass Beach are white, brown, and green. Now the beach is part of Mackerricher State Park. Endangered as well as native plants grow there. Collecting the glass is prohibited. To commemorate the beach, the Glass Festival is held annually on Memorial Day weekend.       
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