Summer camp for the The Royal Tyrrell Museum is already 85 per cent booked. Bookings are ahead of pace compared to previous years for the Encana Badlands Science Centre held by the museum.
“Enrollment compared to other years is up. Just the fact that this time of year so many spots are sold is exciting for us,” said Mike Dooley, public relations coordinator for the Royal Tyrrell.
Camp participants get to work alongside the museum’s scientists and take part in real research projects during the week long camp. The digs are usually in quarries near the Tyrrell or 45 minutes away at Tolman Bridge. Budding palaeontologists also get to do some micro sifting for fossils - a large sample of soil and small rocks is taken and sorted through for dinosaur fossils.
You can help dig for dinosaur fossils if you take part in the Encana Badlands Science Camp offered during the summer by Drumheller’s Royal Tyrrell Museum. Pictured above is a hadrosaur on display at the Museum. A Team from the Tyrrell spent a week this winter excavating and putting a plaster jacket on a hadrosaur tail that was uncovered in northern Alberta.
The amount of media exposure Drumheller got last year, as well as word of mouth, could be contributing to the camp filling up so early this year.
“... the word is getting out what a great experience and what a great value our Encana Badlands Science Camp is - it’s one of the most unique experiences for a summer camp in Alberta and Canada,” said Dooley. The museum offers a family camp (age five and up), a senior science camp for ages 13 to 16, and a junior science camp for ages 9 to 12.
“We have a number of participants who return,” Dooley explained. “We actually offer a “Leaders In Training” program, which allows participants to return as camp counsellors.”
Part of the unique experience of the camp is the accommodations - campers spend the week living in a teepee in Midland Provincial Park, almost in the backyard of the museum.
Although it has no major new exhibits planned for this year, the museum has a couple of exciting things that it will be releasing closer to summer.
