Students Track Ancient History

For the past month, Bonnie Harris’ sixth-grade class has been re-creating ancient civilizations out of sugar cubes, clay, pasta and papier-mache.

On a 6-by-4-foot wooden board laid with model-train tracks, Harris’ 31 students have built their own miniature versions of Mt. Olympus and the Acropolis, Mt. Vesuvius, the pyramids, the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China. One student even crafted a tiny sphinx out of clay for ancient Egypt. Another sculpted a sitting Buddha for the Taj Mahal.

“I like to think of it as the Orient Express through ancient history,” said Harris, who teaches at Cielo Vista Elementary School in Rancho Santa Margarita. “They love the hands-on experience of painting and doing papier-mache and building with sugar cubes. But I did have one parent call up thinking it was strange that the kids were working on an ancient history project with a train running through it.”

It made sense to Harris, a model-train buff.

Last year, she had her fifth-grade class study U.S. history by building its own Promontory railroad--the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads joined at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869, to complete the first transcontinental railroad.

This year, Harris had her sixth-graders begin with Promontory Point and build back in time.

The students will show off their work at an open house for their families at the school tonight.

For the kids, who worked in teams, it was just an enjoyable way to learn.

“We were having fun researching all the stuff,” said 12-year-old Michael Hicks, who helped build ancient Greece.

“It was more interesting than just reading about it from a book.”

In addition to researching the ancient landmarks, each student was required to write a report about the team’s assigned civilization.

Samantha Cervantes, 11, hunted down pictures of the Taj Mahal at the library. A harder task, she said, was building it--all 756 sugar cubes worth.

“The glue on the sugar cubes wouldn’t stick,” she said.