Des Plaines students go underground

There is life underground, and a group of Des Plaines second-graders is studying all about it.

North Elementary School students with the help of The Field Museum are learning about rocks and minerals, and finding out more about what lives in the soil.

Thanks to a $250 grant from the District 62 fundraising arm, the school welcomed the Chicago museum's Soil Adventure Mobile.

Teacher Karen Higginson applied for the grant to give the school's nearly 100 second-grade students a chance to learn more.

Field Museum representatives showed students things like the mouth of an earthworm, explaining how they aerate the soil.

"They had them touching sand, silt and clay," Higginson said. "Anything they got to touch, they really understood it because they were able to touch it."

The Field Museum also showed students century-old dioramas, which they loved.

Students also are planning a visit to the museum in November to discover more.