Composite Photo #1 - Members of the Boys & Girls Club of Sweetwater County attended two special presentations last week hosted by the Sweetwater County Historical Museum. The topics were adobe brick making and digging for fossils.

 

(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - June 22, 2024)     The Sweetwater County Historical Museum in Green River partnered recently with the Boys & Girls Club of Sweetwater County for two special hands-on activities with historical themes.

Both events were staged at the Boys & Girls Club on Massachusetts Avenue in Rock Springs by Aidan Brady, the museum’s Public Engagement Coordinator. Day 1, attended by 85 B & C Club members, focused on the ancient craft of making adobe bricks. The oldest known structures on earth date back to before 8,000 BC were made of adobe, and some adobe structures around 900 years old are still in use today. Adobe bricks, (mud bricks), are made of earth and straw. The wet mixture is pressed into open molds, then left to dry. (True adobe bricks are not kiln-dried, but dried by the sun.) 

Participants made their own adobe bricks, built an small adobe structure, and were allowed to take their bricks home if they so chose.

The Day 2 exercise, in which 95 club members participated, was an paleontological dig. The kids learned about paleontologists and their work and got to perform their own actual digs, recovering genuine fossils, including prehistoric knightia fish, gastropods (snails), petrified wood, and shark’s teeth.

Educators, parents, and parent-teacher groups who are interested in learning more about museum programs for students Grades K - 12 are encouraged to contact Brady at (307) 872-6435 or via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..