79 AD

Right as you walk in the Pompeii exhibit  ran an 8 minute animation of what life was like in the town.  Exiting the movie, you're immersed in artifacts from the villages. Sculptures of the Roman Gods, marble tables with lion's feet, copper helmets with ornately detailed battle scenes lined the walls.  For almost 2,000 years these relics were buried beneath a volcano and here they are, right in front of our eyes, close enough to touch; their astoundingly intricate details preserved by the volcanic rock for nearly two millennia.

You can imagine my dismay as the students barreled right past it all to the back of the exhibit. 

Not that I could blame them, there were skeletons and body casts. Oh well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. 

But, here's where it started to get really exciting from a teacher's perspective. Several students came up to me to say, "Make sure you listen to the adult audio channel because it has way more information than the family station." In that: look at me, I'm listening to adult information for the right reasons!

Okay, serious bonus points for that. 

Looking back we could have dragged the students through the statures and plates and scales one by one before allowing them to see the bones. But doing so could have done two things. It could have tarnished for the experience for them, souring the trip right from the start. It's a shame but just like the nightly news however sparse the bad experience are, they always seem to outweigh all of the good ones. 

And just a few of those experiences can instill the belief that museums are boring.

But we let the kids be kids. They popped from one case to the next and instead of avoiding the adults, we were bombarded with, "Did you see the coins...?!?!" and, "Did you know...?!?!" Of course we'd casually try to steer the groups towards some of the particularly interesting pieces from the beginning of the hall.  (I can't really say I cared much about the plates and clay jars either). 

Funny enough, I began to notice that once they surveyed the entire scene, group by group, they went back to the beginning of the exhibit. Not only did they take the time to digest the information the second time around, they dragged their friends with them. 

We're all born with that innate desire to learn and ingest the world around us. So, we showed them a science video about the dangers of living near a volcano like Vesuvius (and as you can imagine, scientists are not all that compassionate when it comes to people building cities directly below an active volcano). As scary as that thought is, they were all pretty excited for the trip to museum. It seemed that interest really paid off in the exhibit. Sure they were kids, bobbing around from one exciting artifact to the next but they all eventually settled into something that excited them. 

And their teachers and chaperones could not have been more impressed. They always seem to impress me the most the minute I get out of their way. 

See for yourselves, though and read their comments below. 

 

"When I first walked in the pompeii exibit I thought that it was awesome. All the pots and statues had amazing and intresting meanings. When you watched some of the clips about pompeii people's lives you get so intrested in it and you learn so much about them before the big valcano erupted. It was sad yet awesome!" 

"I  was really excited to get into the museum it was so awesome . I loved seeing all of the jewelry and the statues on desplay they looked really cool and they were in pretty good condition concidering they are 2,000 years old!" 

Pompeii was so nice and sunny at 8am in the moring of the day when Mount Vesuvius erupted but much later in the after noon, the town was destroyed.

I thought that the Pompeii exhibit was amazing, and I loved how there were lots of fun activities, such as the numerous videos that showed you the people of Pompeii's everyday life. I also thought that the build your own house activity was fascinating because there houses were so different. 

Seeing the way people lived back then made me pretty sad because they were civilized people with nice homes, a good amount of food, and Pompeii seemed like a great place to live. Then Vesuvius erupted and destroyed everything.

Very sad yet intresting in some parts. I observed that there was a lot of body casts. 


For cleaning clothes the people of Pompeii would leave jars out and when someone had to go they could use the jar. When the jars were full they would bring it in and poor it into a pool. Then the slaves would stomp on it and then hang it up to dry.



The way they clean their clothes with pee from total strangers on the street is unsanitary."

it was a very interesting expirence.I would definitively go back and do it again."

I also observed the bodies and how they're final poses were before they die, the poses amazed me.

I found it very sad, but also very in treging the fact that the people were just running for thier lives not knowing what was going on and then were instantly killed. 

"While going about their buiness in the town square (a big farmers market in the middle of town) Mt. Veservious erupted. It only took fifteen hours to bury the town in lava and fire."

It was very interging how you saw many of the bodeis covering their mouths. 
The exibet had many artfacts from the remains of pompai like pots or plates. 
The mini moveis in the exibet theater showed lots of information on everyday life in Pompeii. 

The pyroclastic surge in hercluman traped many people in ash and the showcase of it interested me very much.