Children explore, learn with new program at Fantastic Caverns

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- A group of fourth-graders were the first to participate in a new expanded educational program at Fantastic Caverns.

The students from Weaver Elementary School climbed into two Jeep-drawn trailers and hit the cave trails. The two-hour tour was carefully crafted by Fantastic Caverns staff.

"We decided a long time ago that we needed to have something more than just field trips, where kids just ride through the cave," said Kirk Hansen, spokesman for the cave.

Caverns staff have developed a trip to teach children visitors what it was like to be a Neanderthal.

Pam Cole, a caverns employee for 15 years, was primed and ready for the first batch of children Thursday. Her first stop was in an area reserved for hands-on learning. They started first with trying to make fire.

She explained how the Neanderthals were making their own way, learning what we take for granted. She gave the children sticks, then rocks, then bows made from sticks and string, letting one child whip a bow as fast as he could around another's stationary stick. No fire ensued, but there were a couple of puffs of smoke and a few sparks.

"Once the Neanderthals would get a fire going they would keep it going," Cole explained, knowing the children had just learned how precious a fire was in that time.

The replicas of fire pits were one of the most intriguing activities. The kids were allowed to dig in the pits for items they might have found when Neanderthals inhabited the Earth. As the students unearthed the things Fantastic Caverns staff had planted in the pits, Cole asked them about their finds.

Madison DeWeerd and Lee Anna Williams dug with a frenzy, and found an odd rock. "What would they have used this for?" Cole asked, as they handed her a scooped-out rock.

"A tool?" a voice from the back rang out. "Something to put things in?"

Next, the find was a real bear claw. Then it was on to a site the Fantastic Caverns staff had made into an art studio.

"These people didn't have ways of writing book," Cole explained. "They left their history by painting on walls."

Art supplies? "They couldn't go to Wal-Mart like we do." Cole then explained how the tools they were going to draw with had been created, especially chalk, from minerals. The kids used their new art tools on rolled-out brown paper, to be taken back to school and hung on the walls. Bailey Smith drew a picture of her pet pit bull, Gracie.