Eureka!

 Marina has been studying Colorado history this year at school. Today her class went on a field trip to a former gold mine and mill. Marina asked me to attend as a chaperone. Only five parents were allowed to come and I was fortunate to be one.

Marina was a bit disappointed that her good friends were all assigned to the first bus to the mountain town while she and I were on the second one. So I actually got to sit next to her on the ride. We saw some beautiful scenery on the way!

Once we arrived, Marina was happy to be reunited with her friends. The mine was incredible. It was built into the side of the mountain. We had to take a smaller bus to the entrance.We started by going into a small mine. We all wore hard hats inside and there was a small vein of gold still in the rock that we could see.

Next we saw a tunnel which was built for other mines to send their rocks to the mill so the gold could be extracted. Then we went into the mill. We saw where the rocks were smashed. We learned how cyanide and mercury were used in the process. Marina is researching Josephine Aspinwall Roche, a Colorado woman who worked for safer conditions for miners. I'm sure this experience will help her with that!


At the end of the tour, the kids all got to pan for gold. They found pieces of pyrite and small flecks of real Colorado gold. They were all encouraged to shout out "Eureka!" when they found it. That was by far the favorite part of the tour for all the kids.

At the end of the tour, everyone retrieved their lunches and we sat down to eat. The kids were pretty hungry by then. Once everyone had eaten, we all got back onto the buses for the ride back to school.