Throughout children’s time at the First Program students are encouraged to learn about and embrace diversity in all of its forms as well as recognize themselves as members of various groups. As they grow within the Dalton community, their appreciation for other, more distant cultures, people and traditions broadens. During the third grade children are encouraged to take the perspective of others by imagining life lived in other times and places. We do this by thinking about learning and about early immigrants from across the Bering Strait, Native Americans living in New York, the Vikings around 1000AD, Henry Hudson and the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam.

House 37’s Viking study begins by asking: Who the Vikings were; why they came to America; and what their encounters with the American Indians were.

Dr. Neil Goldberg suggested I look at the web site of the Jorvik Viking Centre (http://www.jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk/). The Centre is an archaeological site consisting of a reconstructed Viking village and an ongoing excavation of a Viking town. In browsing the site Dr. Goldberg and I discovered that part of their educational program was a Skype session. Emailing the centre I scheduled a day and time for our session with Peggy Feiner's assitance on the details.

A week before the session House 37 students wrote questions, which they had, and weren’t answered through books. I emailed these onto the centre so that during the session the Viking “educational docent” was prepared with answers. The students were intrigued, fascinated and captured throughout the hour long session. The experience was valuable in that it enriched our Viking study. We viewed many Viking artifacts, learned innumerable Viking facts- like pink was an expensive dye and only the wealthy ruling family could afford clothes died in pink. The answer, which will be remembered by all, was to the last question. Gabriel asked, “What was the most interesting find at the archaeological excavation.” Our docent picked up a rather large looking stone and said, “This.” It turned out to be human feces. (Perfect for third graders.) Petrified waste informs archaeologist about what the people ate during this period of time and place.