Naperville teacher on the hunt for mastodon fossils
If there's a mastodon buried in these parts, Ann Covert is determined to find it.
Being part of a team that uncovers the remains of the 11,500-year-old mastodon believed to be buried in James "Pate" Philip State Park near Bartlett would not only satisfy her own fascination with the ice age mammal, it would give her one awesome story to share with her students.
Covert, a fourth-grade teacher at Indian Prairie Unit 204's May Watts Elementary School in Naperville, is one of about 20 area instructors and students participating in the two-week joint dig program with The Field Museum of Chicago and DuPage County Forest Preserve District to unearth the extinct relative of the elephant.
"I believe if I'm going to bring something into my classroom and teach it to my kids, I'm going to do it the right way by getting hands on first," she said. "Touching it is the experience. When do you ever touch something from a woolly mammoth? Whenever they go anywhere, I ask my students 'Did you touch that Sequoia?' 'Did you touch that animal?'"
Her fascination with the mammal began about eight years ago when she learned about the Blackwell Mammoth whose remains were discovered in 1977 at Blackwell Forest Preserve near Warrenville.
"I became passionate with the story because it was so local. I brought it into the classroom and had a blast explaining to my students how this ice age mammal was found 15 minutes away. So they thought that was cool," she said Thursday while sifting through earth patches. "Then the great find happened here in 2005 and brought back the same excitement."
In August 2005, a forest preserve contractor working in the state park uncovered a mastodon's molar tooth. Further excavation also turned up two additional teeth, a tusk, bone fragments and a partial rib.
Soon after the 2005 find, DuPage County Forest Preserve District naturalist Jack MacRae brought the teeth to Covert's class, making them the first students to see them up close.
"Every student in Ann's class, for the past 10 years, just hangs on every word she says," MacRae said. "That's just her ability to relate to the students. So whenever we have an exciting project with the forest preserve, I know her class will be interested because Ann is interested."
If not for that 2005 find, Scott Demel, head of collections management in The Field Museum's department of anthropology, said the park likely would have never been excavated or presumed to house the remains.
"There are so many wetlands throughout the county and state and they are all candidates to have housed mastodons and mammoths," Demel said. "So it's a crapshoot. Most ancient elephants are found during restoration work for other projects."
MacRae agreed.
"If those teeth hadn't been found, there's no way anyone would have found the rest of this," he said. "This would have all been the middle of nowhere. The ones that we do find, we're lucky to find them."
Talia Cherniavskij, 13, of Lombard said she jumped at the chance to be in the "lucky group" that hits the mastodon jackpot.
"We don't really study the ice age in school, which is what makes this opportunity unique," she said. "We get dirty but it's well worth it, especially if we find a skeleton."
By midday Thursday, Demel estimated that 8.3 percent of one tusk had been unearthed.
The public also can participate in half-day excavations on Saturday and Sunday and guided tours will be available next Tuesday through Friday. For information, or to set up a guided tour, call (630) 933-7208.