1998 ACTIVITY PAGE DIGGING IN THE DIRT! Did you ever think that you could learn stuff by playing in the sandbox again?? Lemme show ya ! For this activity you will need two trays(about 30 cm. x 30cm), some wet dirt and twenty pennies. Put some of the wet dirt into one of the tray and fill it up until it's about 10 cm from the top. Do the same thing with the other tray. Now, put ten pennies in each box and stir, stir, stir. Stir up the pennies really well into the dirt, until you think they are spread out all over. Now you are ready to excavate!! In two of the trick pages you learned about two different ways of excavating - open area and grid.   Now it's your turn... In one of the trays perform a vertical excavation with test pits. You can do this by digging little holes with your finger straight down to the bottom of the tray. Each hole should be a few inches apart. How many pennies did you find? In the other tray perform a horizontal or open area excavation.  In only one corner of the box (about 5 cm wide and 5 cm long) remove all the dirt, a teaspoon might help you here. How many pennies did you find this time? Now that you have performed your excavations, compare your results.  Did you find more pennies using one method? Which do you think is the better or more useful way to excavate? Do your friends agree? I'll just wait here while you think about those questions. Really, there is no right answer. Both methods are very helpful and useful. Just because you found more pennies doing it one way doesn't neccesarily mean that it was the better way. Know what I mean? TAKE ME  TO 1998!