The first time I started writing about mammoths was in 2008,
it was a not very well conceived picture book. Fast forward a decade to 2018, and
whilst attending a writing for children course at the Oxford University Centre
for Continued Learning, I began writing a middle grade story about a
Neanderthal and a mammoth. This also went on to a draw of partly planned rough
drafts alongside my first mammoth manuscript.
Then in 2020, whilst researching de-extinction for a YA
Neanderthal thriller, I read a book on the science of bring back long dead
species called ‘How to Clone a Mammoth’ by Beth Shapiro. Despite being about
bringing back many long dead faunas I got a bit distracted by mammoths. I think
it was the plan for mammoths to help in the battle against global warming, and
that there is already a home waiting for them, Pleistocene Park in Siberia,
which really caught my imagination.
A few nights later I dreamt a scene (corny but it’s true) about three children studying ins a remote artic region, when the building begins to shake as a massive herd of mammoth amble into view. This became the starting point for my work in progress. In 2021 when I first succumbed to the dreaded covid, while in isolation I began drawing mammoths, and an obsession was well and truly born.
So, with just a over a week to prepare, and shoestring budget I set to work. I stated with a display. It had to engage every age group from toddler to the elderly, and not cost too much. Luckily, I managed to pick up a free exhibition display board from a marketplace social media site. I used the boards to display information about general mammoth facts, mammoth cloning, and the theories of their proposed benefits to helping with the battle against global warming.
Then about palaeontology and bit about one of the most exciting recently discovered mammoth sites, The Mammoth Graveyard as featured in the BBC David Attenborough, that was found by Sally and Nev Hollingworth near Swindon.
Lastly, I displayed some of my mammoth illustrations.
I desperately wanted people to interact and chat and ask
questions. So, I designed some craft sheets for children, design your own
mammoth – cold proofing an Asian elephant, 3D mammoths and mammoth
colouring. I also created some takeaway
sheets, with information of local mammoth places to visit, free mammoth
documentaries to stream and recommended mammoth reading for all ages.
On the day I managed to squeeze into my mammoth skirt and set off. I set up the boards, crafts and also displayed various mammoth fossils, bones, and models for people to see and touch.
I felt nervous, but I shouldn’t have worried, as people were interested. Over the course of the hour and a half I spoke to as many adults as children with an age spread of toddler up to approximately mid-eighties. The conversations varied depending on who I was chatting too, with a lot of the adults being intrigued by the cloning and asking more questions about global warming and how cloning could be used in a broader sense to help endangered animals, to children asking about mammoth / human cohabitation. At one point I was even discussing the death of the last known living dodo and the chances of bringing the species back from extinction! Both adults and children alike were fascinated by the mammoth bones and fossils, the baby mammoth tooth causing quite a lot of excitement.
I was pleased to see few children (and a few adults)
pick up the activities, especially the ‘design your own mammoth’ task, and I
took time to engage with them and tell them how the chosen dress-up items for
the elephants reflected how mammoths had evolved to adapt to survive in cold
regions. A lot of children took the sheets home to share with siblings. Quiet a
few people wanted to learn more so took the handouts about local mammoth places
to visit and free documentaries to stream and/or took the handout of
recommended mammoth books to read.
All in all I think it went well. I was delighted to share my
love for mammoth with other people.
No comments:
Post a Comment