Project Overview

This children’s book was created by kindergarten students from the Genesee Community Charter School in Rochester, New York, as part of a learning expedition on prehistoric local history.

Within the larger topic of early history, students did a case study of mastodons. They began by examining a Mystery Object (see page 2 of this book, “The Box”), which, through their research at a local museum, they discovered was a mastodon tooth.

As part of the expedition, students did fieldwork at a local paleontological site where they worked with a paleontologist and excavated sea creature fossils from warm sea fossil beds.

This learning expedition entailed extensive integration of arts, including artistic models, dance, movement and songs.

For this final product, students wrote statements about what they had learned about mastodons and, working with the school’s visual arts teacher, created ink and watercolor paintings to illustrate the text, creating a simple yet elegant product.

The original product was produced in-house on glossy, magazine like paper, with center-staple binding. This book, and many others like it, is available for purchase on the schools’ website.