Rapt, the young students started to dig, quiet with determination. As the fourth graders began to uncover the planted "artifacts," the silence ceased gradually. Excited by their discoveries, each student announced to the group what they had unearthed. They carefully recorded what they had found and where in the pit their finds were located.
"[The fourth graders] all seemed to understand the importance of the different tools and procedures involved, and a lot of them made really insightful observations about the things they found, which was a very important goal of our lessons," Kelly said.
Neat idea. I seem to recall a museum or two burying fake dinosaur bones and letting kids dig them up like that.