Witte Museum Week 4

 

~August 3, 2023~

Thursday was a relatively relaxed day at camp, since the campers dedicated most of the time to working on putting the final touches on the previous day’s projects, coloring even more dinosaurs, and watching some YouTube videos. For some reason, this group of campers was really into dancing and gymnastics, so our team kept putting on dance videos like Kidz Bop so that they could work off some of their extra energy. Many of the girls had clearly taken a few years of gymnastics and were showing off their handsprings and cartwheels to one another. During lunch, we even challenged the boys and girls to have a dance-off since they were having so much fun!

During breaktime, after finishing exploring HEBBA for the last time, Ms. Casey and I took a couple of the campers back to Mt. Witte because some of them had missed previous days of camp and hadn’t had the chance to climb. Surprisingly, one of the campers we took managed to make it all the way to the top and I managed to take a shot of her ringing the bell.


Ringing the bell at Mt. Witte


The evening activity was creating dinosaurs out of clothespins – I was surprised by how creative many of the campers were. They had clearly learned a lot about their chosen dinosaur’s skeletal structure. However, hot-gluing the clothespins together proved to be quite a bit of a challenge, and many of the campers opted out of taking their models home because they wanted them to have more time to dry. When I was cleaning up the room after sign-out with another intern, I noticed that some of the wings of the quetzalcoatls were starting to fall off.

We spent a good portion of the day touring the exhibits throughout the museum, including ones that we almost never visited, including the South Texas Heritage Center and an exhibit featuring cowboys upstairs. Throughout the day, we also played bingo, which encouraged the campers to interact even more with the exhibits by pointing out specific details in the scenes to each other.


More beautiful exhibits at the Witte

~August 4, 2023~

Today was not only the last day of the dinosaur camp, but it was also the last day of summer camps in general. As a result, I could definitely feel an anticipatory energy building among my team members – while some of us were looking forward to a new work routine starting on Monday, I was ready to start packing for my flight to college. At the beginning of the day, I had to remind myself to turn in all of my keycards or else I would probably forget that I wouldn’t be coming in for work this summer again.


Signing in for the last time!


We worked with paleontologist kits, which was one of the most fun activities we did (I remember having one of these when I was little, too!). Before, we started, we passed around headlights to help them with their excavations since we were planning on turning the lights off and assisted them with adjusting the angle so that they weren’t pointing them at anyone’s face. There were about fifteen fossils in each block in total, including a shark tooth, a mosasaurus tooth, and several kinds of dinosaur bones – some of the campers kept arguing with me about whether they were real or not, but honestly, if they were simply casts of the original fossils, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Since the campers were only allowed to keep three fossils for themselves, there was plenty of bartering going on amongst the five tables. One of the girls even gifted me a shell she found!




Looking for fossils

After working with the campers on their projects for a little while longer, I was surprised by my supervisor treating our entire department to a pizza party! I usually eat lunch by myself or with a couple of other interns if our lunch times coincide, so it was fun to finally be able to eat with most of the team. Even though we had all had a lot of fun working with the campers every day for several weeks, we were all looking forward to the end – we all received pins congratulating us on surviving Witte camp.

At the end of the day, I went to the Public Programs Department offices to pick up a gift bag that the team had prepared for me. In addition to a water bottle and a bag, the team had signed a card for me wishing me all the best for college. I was really thankful for their appreciation, but I was also sad that I probably wouldn’t be seeing any of them for a long time!

Overall, I am incredibly thankful to YAP for the amazing opportunities at Washington Week and at the Witte Museum. Although I’m about to begin my college journey, I definitely won’t be forgetting everything I learned throughout these experiences – from communicating more efficiently with my peers, to analyzing works of art, to learning so much more about Latino history. I can’t believe that this chapter has come to an end, but I will for sure be keeping in touch with my YAP familia for years to come.

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