Playing Like Darwin's Children

Eli Whitney Museum

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Thursday, April 13, 2017

Playing Like Darwin's Children

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Vacation Program

  • Thursday, April 13, 2017
  • 9:00 am – 3:00 pm
  • Designed for ages 6 to 8

To know: Dogwood, Forsythia, Tulip

160 years ago, the youngest of Charles and Emma Darwin's 10 children were about your age. Charles Darwin was one of the world's great naturalists. Charles and Emma brought their children up to be bold explorers. Their household was lively and curious. The children helped with experiments including sprinkling flour on the backs of bumblebees to help track their movements from flower to flower.

Follow Charles's instructions: Explore. Look closely at everything. We will collect and record samples of all the blooms on our site. Learn to dissect flowers and look at their parts with a field microscope (yours to take on future explorations.) Sprout seeds to study. Learn the skills of observing nature that were important to all educated Victorian children. Construct a toy model of the Beagle, the ship that carried Charles on the 5 year exploration of the world that began a revolution in science. Sorry, no bumblebees.


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