Mar 1

Written by:
3/1/2010 8:15 AM 

By Larry Brillhart

MURRIETA, Calif., - If the children can't get to the gold, the next best thing is to bring the gold to the children. 

Fourth-graders at Alamos Elementary School in Murrieta, California were treated to a gold mining lecture and demonstration on Feb. 26 with the help of Jack Barber, a local prospector and member of the Temecula Chapter of the Gold Prospectors Association of America. Geologist Eric Drummond and GPAA Claims Director Blake Harmon were also on hand to give the students an opportunity to handle prospecting equipment, look at gold through a microscope, examine a variety of valuable rocks and learn how to pan for gold.

Budget cuts have eliminated many elementary school field trips throughout the U.S., so it helped to bring a little of the outdoors into the classroom. The students in attendance had been studying about prospecting and mining, so there were many questions for the lecturers.

Among the classroom lessons were how to read a topographical map and a question-and-answer session on the discovery of gold and the famous men who made riches in the Mother Lode regions of California. The kids also were treated to a word search puzzle, the latest edition of Gold Prospectors magazine, a demonstration on metal detecting and their opportunity to pan for gold.

The appreciative responses from the teachers and students indicated the need for events like these in our schools. Judging from Friday's reaction, there's a growing audience eager to learn about gold prospecting. It was an honor to bring the experience to the classroom.

Read more about this event, and see some of the classroom photos, in the May/June edition of Gold Prospectors magazine.