Discovering California’s resources

Marisa O’Neil

Students at Davis Education Center struck gold on Monday.

So, maybe they really struck gold-spray-painted rock, but

fourth-graders in Jennifer Hillestad’s class still learned about

gold, oil, lumber and more of California’s important resources.

Hillestad instructed students to “think like an archeologist” when

examining a variety of “resources,” including the semi-fool’s gold,

wood chips from the playground and a jar of “crude oil” made from

baby oil and black paint.

Armed with their textbooks and sample resources, the students set

out to log four resources before recess.

Harry Do and Winston Khuu, both 9, sat down with a small plastic

bag of wood chips representing lumber. Harry searched through the

textbook to see where lumber is found in California.

“I think it’s in the mountains,” he said, pointing at a map in the

book. “They have a picture of trees here.”

That explanation was good enough for Winston, who wrote it down on

their group’s sheet.

“What other resources are needed to produce this one?” Winston

read aloud.

After some thought, he wrote: “Ax to cut wood, and it will make

lumber.”

A couple of desks away, Renae Andrade, 10, and Elena Valeriote, 9,

finished up with their first resource and packed up to work on

another.

Renae and Elena sat themselves down in front of the gold rocks.

“This is spray paint,” Renae observed as she examined the rocks.

She then glanced at the clock and gasped in horror.

“We only have five more minutes!” she exclaimed.

“Girls, don’t worry,” Hillestad assured. “You’ve been working the

whole time.”

Renae put her hand over her heart and breathed a sigh of relief.

The girls started filling out their sheet, but stopped short when

they needed to write why gold is an important resource to the state.

“Because it can make lots of money for people,” Elena suggested

half-jokingly.

Renae started reading through her textbook while Elena looked up

“gold” in the index of another book. With the clock ticking down,

they decided to go with a variation on Elena’s suggestion.

“Let’s just put that it’s used to make money and without it,

everybody would be poor,” Renae decided.

As if on cue, their time ran out. Renae sighed again, glad they

beat the gold rush.

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot

education writer Marisa O’Neil visits a campus in the Newport-Mesa

area and writes about her experience.