Casting Tracks (30 minutes)

Cast your own animal track out of plaster to bring home. Only available as a supplement to Animal Tracks. Maximum number of classes is two with a maximum of 25 students per class.

An excellent add-on to the Animal Tracking program. Students can further their tracking knowledge by being a Track Detective! Students will randomly choose a rubber footprint of a Connecticut mammal and then armed only with a ruler and a blank animal track sheet, students need to deduce what mammal their track is from. Available for their assistance are many mounted mammals with which the students can try to match up their foot with that of the animals and actual plaster casts in which they can try to fit their feet. During this round of detective work, students in groups of five will assist the instructor in casting their own animal track. By using a paper form filled with plaster of Paris, students can place their track in plaster to create their own take home project. Afterwards, a fun tracking detective game will enable students to fill in the blanks on their animal track sheet, the tracking sheet will also be taken home for tracking adventures around the house. At the end of the program, students will retrieve their castings and the instructor will identity the variety of animal that helped create their own unique track project. This component will be part of the indoor study conducted in Animal Tracking.