Has your ten year old child ever wanted to un-earth an ancient fossil? Have they wondered what it would be like to stand in the center of a sundial, take part in the original Olympic games or mummify a pumpkin? If so, then it sounds like your elementary school adventurer should tell her science teacher to attend the Ancient World Hands On Museum being set up at the Indian River Charter High School.

This event is the brainchild of IRCHS chemistry teacher Rose Gaines and is made possible by a grant from the Toyota Corporation. In March of 2009 Gaines received the news that she had received a $10,000 grant to support her vision of creating a hands-on natural history museum with exhibits researched and crafted by Charter High School Students for use by local elementary schools. Gaines also envisioned that the interactive exhibits would encompass the ancient civilizations from Greece, Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China in order to match the time period that the Charter High School was to be focusing on in the fall semester of 09.

"I wanted the elementary school students to experience how ancient civilizations created all the foundational things we take for granted; food, clothing, shelter." says Gaines who has organized a myriad of teachers and students to create the museum's varied exhibits. It is obviously an enormous organizational feat that this energetic but mild mannered science teacher has undertaken but the results are paying off. Several Fine Arts students have been recreating giant scale models of the planets in our solar system. Groups of Chemistry students have been focusing on Egypt, creating experiments & presentations dealing with natural dyes and pigments, mummification and bread making. The Physics classes have taken up ancient Greece delving into Astronomy, and the amazing mechanical devices created by Archimedes. Gaines' own Earth and Space class has also gotten into the act recreating ancient clocks and calendars and putting together a hands-on archeological dig that will allow the elementary school students to unearth actual fossils. Even the school's media & computer design classes are getting involved creating solar system stickers and "passports" that the young students will get stamped as they move from exhibit to exhibit.

The entire event will take place from November third through the fifth at the Indian River Charter High School. The museum tours, lead by Charter students will take two hours to complete and are available to groups of students in grades three through five. Two tour openings are still available, Wednesday November 4 th from 1 - 3 p.m. and Thursday November 5 th from 1:00 - 3:00. For more information or to book a museum tour contact Rose Gaines at 567-6600 ext 222