This has been the week for field trips, whew!  We visited the Gray Fossil Museum near Kingsport, Tennessee with our local homeschool group.  It was a great day for us because we were able to meet up with Mamaw who lives in that area who was able to enjoy the trip with us.

The kids had fun exploring the displays including a mock fossil dig inside.  The real dig was outside during a later tour.

And practice arranging bones from bone fragments to match what it's supposed to look like.

A neat traveling exhibit of the Rainforest displayed as a maze for the kids.  This was a fun way to introduce the Rainforest as in their curriculum this year we will be doing "Exploring Countries and Cultures" which will cover many aspects of this area.

Hey...hey... we're the monkeys!

Mamaw checking out the dig site.

Dig site where the first fossil was discovered by the Tennessee Department of Transportation when widening the road for the state.  The site is now a protected area ran by ETSU for further study.  Volunteers come every week to assist in digs with palentologists, kids can also attend camps over the summer and go on special digs.

 Second dig site and underground lake where many fossils are found.  Tapirs are the most found animal, but sabertoothed tigers, hippos and elephant bones have also been found.

A really cool grasshopper photo, but I digress...  :)

 Third dig site, where everyone got a chance to dig for fossils.  A couple of people found some, a portion of a rib and a plant fossil.  It's really an addictive thing to do!

Photo of a man's plant fossil.

Noah also found a root fossil which was positively identified later.  He recieved a card stating what kind he found to take home, but had to reliquish possession of the fossil to the museum.  Anna was searching really hard, but no luck this time.  Apparently, fossils are found all the time as this area is a real hot bed.

I never miss the opportunity to identify an edible wild food plant for our journals.  This beautiful prickly is a Bull Thistle.  The roots can be boiled, frozen or dried and powder used as a nutrient additive.  The entire plant can be boiled and used in soups and stews or liquid drank.  I didn't take the time to pluck for further study.  Medicinally it has a slightly relaxing effect.  Roots used for diarrhea, ear aches, juice in mouth for toothache (need that NOW for my teething Sarah!), powdered seed mashed for diuretic, burns.

 As most all homeschooling parents (especially Christian families) soon discover when teaching science to their children that they eventually are confronted with the dinosaur controversy and whether they lived millions of years ago (usually the platform for evolution theory) or were created during the 6 days of creation and died in Noah's flood (creation theory 6000 years ago which much of the reseach is pointing to now).  This also leads to discussion as to the age of the earth... young vs old.  There is a ton of information on the subject and can become very heated depending on who you talk to.  I have an opinion on all of this, of course...which I hope to share in the future...not as an attempt to persuade people to any particular side, but as a way to explore the information in a way to help our children so that they will understand how to navigate through the truths and mis-truths as they grow and make decisions.  This particular museum was heavily evolution based which is the secular "norm" and we look forward to visiting creation museums as to compare the science against biblical fact for ourselves.