Students learn about the past at Archaeology Day

For the first time since the pandemic, Archaeology Day was back at Montana Wild.

Hundreds of primarily fourth graders from throughout the Helena area and beyond ran from station to station, experiencing the tools and ways of life of those who came before us.

Laura Marsh, Community Engagement Specialist With Montana Historical Society says this event allows students to see how people lived in the past and how that may affect us today.

“It really lets them connect to the past and realize that we have a very long history in this state, people do. And then they can sort of use that to connect to our present,” says Marsh.

The students traveled between five stations where they learned about a variety of topics. Station one covered stone boiling. Station two was atlatl throwing. Station three was a mock excavation to uncover artifacts in tubs of soil. Station four was the flint knapping station, and station five was a scavenger hunt.

Magdalena Delgado, a fourth grader, says that through learning about history we might be able to better enhance our tools of the present.

“Because we might be able to like learn more stuff based off of what's been happening, based on what they've used. They might have something like they might have used something that might be better than what we've used today,” says Delgado.

Another fourth-grade student, Sammy Clerget, says it’s important to learn about historical artifacts so we don’t just reinvent the same thing.

“So, we can, like, know how to make stuff better than it was,” says Clerget.