Ice Age Discoveries

Teachers and students raising their arms with an illustration of a sloth in the background

Students will explore what our city looked like 50,000 years ago when Saber-toothed Cats and Dire Wolves roamed, while learning about the plant and animal fossils we find in La Brea Tar Pits.

Program Overview:

  • La Brea Tar Pits Mobile Museum’s Ice Age Discoveries program is a 45 minute program for students in grades K–2. 
  • Dependent on the school’s bell schedule, this program can be scheduled for up to three classes per day.
  • The program is facilitated by two Educators inside the Mobile Museum.

The Ice Age Discoveries program will guide students to:

Learn...

  • Los Angeles, and especially the Tar Pits, has a lot of fossils (finding fossils)
  • Fossils tell us about the past (studying fossils)
  • Ice Age Los Angeles was different in some ways, and similar in others, to Los Angeles today (learning from fossils) 

Feel...

  • A sense of wonder and discovery about Los Angeles and my own neighborhood
  • Empowered to learn, play, imagine, and do science

experience...

  • Doing science and thinking like a scientist
  • The excitement of working together to make discoveries
  • Adding to the story and science of Ice Age Los Angeles
     

La Brea Tar Pits Mobile Museum is made possible in part by the Kenneth T. & Eileen L. Norris Foundation in honor of Lisa D. Hansen.

Supported by generous funding from California Natural Resources Agency, Institute of Museum and Library Resources, and The Ahmanson Foundation.