A visit to the Sterling Hill Mining Museum

Sparta — Hilltop Country Day School’s second-grade class recently toured the Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg, in celebration of completion of a variety of school units involving rocks and fossils. “The class completed a science unit on dinosaurs, fossils and more, then moved on to studying different aspects of rocks including types and classifications,” stated Hilltop Country Day School second-grade teacher and Lower School Director Laura McGee. “We’re also reading 'Samantha Hansen has Rocks in her Head,’ by local author Nancy Viau, in which Samantha loves science - especially rocks. In the story, Samantha creates a rock collection for a class science project. Our class will now do the same, marrying related subjects in different disciplines in an educational, yet exciting way.” The field trip included a mine tour, museum tour, rock “dump” search for crystals, and a picnic at the museum’s picnic grounds.