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NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [11:8— Nov., 1915 



talks to the children of each school arranged in two groups accord- 

 ing to grades, while his assistant is carrying on the work in a differ- 

 ent section of the city. 



It is the aim for the assistant to visit each class room with a 

 model lesson, and to take from each school a group of twenty 

 interested pupils for a class lesson at the Museum of Natural 

 History, or to our wonderful fossil beds of the Rancho LaBrea fields. 

 Here they see being dug from the asphaltimi pits, the bones of the 

 mammoth and other prehistoric animals exhibited at the museimi. 



The third visit of the assistant is a field lesson, in which twenty 

 pupils, including representatives from the third thru the eighth 



Examining a Jaw taken from the Rancho Brea Pets 



grades, are taken into the fields, river bed, parks or adjoining 

 vacant lots. Here they learn of the plants and animals and of the 

 formation of soil. Naturally, the groups visiting the river beds 

 and beach cuts have the best chance to observe the making of soil, 

 while those going to the parks find more of the wild birds. The 

 children in the heart of the city, who have to be content with vacant 

 lots, may observe the earthworm dug from his burrows near a 

 hydrant, a slug, or, perhaps a colony of ants. 

 [. These excursions train the child to be observant and teach him 

 the economic value of even the most insignificant forms of life, as 

 the words of a little excursionist show, "I've had lots of fun, and 

 I'm glad the angle-worms can do so much. I won't step on another 

 one. " We want them to have ' ' fun' ' ; to enter into the work with 



