ANTELOPE ISLAND — However old or young, a scientist's main motivation usually is the thrill of discovery.
Ask Michael Foster, a Park City boy who will be going into sixth grade when school resumes. Laboring with a trowel to scrape dark dirt onto a blue dustpan, he explained why he volunteered for a second stint with a summer archaeology field school:
"If you find something," he said, "it feels good and stuff."
He was among about 25 youngsters, fourth- through seventh-graders, who are working and learning through June 29 in the Utah Division of State History archaeology field school. The school is held at the site of a 1,000-year-old Fremont Indian settlement at Mushroom Springs, toward the southern end of Antelope Island.
The site is a rocky hillside overlooking the Fielding-Garr ranch on the island's east side. The fresh springs water a surprisingly green section of the island, lush with reeds and brush, the mud impressed here and there with buffalo tracks and pies. Far lower in altitude, beyond an outcrop, a band of more than 20 buffalo grazed.
The children were too busy to look around at the scenery. They were scraping away the accumulated soil of centuries, sifting dirt in screens as dust billowed, and recording the discovery of rocks and animal bones. Following the field work, they will participate in laboratory sessions in Salt Lake City.
About a dozen kids visit at a time, said Jim Dykman of the history division. They'll rotate in and out, commuting daily from Salt Lake City. Four instructors oversee their work.
Not that the kids working on Antelope Island last week were rowdy. Other than an occasional fluff of dust flipped at one another, they were all business.
"We're finding lots and lots and lots of butchered animal bones," said Ron Rood, the assistant state archaeologist who is running the field school. These include remains of deer, bison and rabbits.
Mushroom Springs became an archaeological site in 1999, when workers were digging a pipeline from the springs to the ranch. Grinding stones, butchered animal bones and pottery showed up, showing the springs were important to the island's earlier inhabitants.
"Our main goal is to expose kids to science," Rood noted.
Danielle Paterson, an outdoor education consultant from Salt Lake City, helped the children reflect on what they're doing. They might write poems or short stories, make cordage out of milkweed as the island's first inhabitants did, or construct a 12,000-year time line out of a climbing rope.
"We try to make it fun," she said.
It's been fun for her, too. Last year she discovered two arrowheads. Once, she said, she was digging with a trowel "and one flipped up right in my face."
"I love this," said Abram Sorensen, Holladay, who is going into fifth grade in the fall. He and Tait Kilgore, a Salt Lake girl who will start seventh grade then, had discovered a bone from an animal that the ancients probably had served up for dinner.
"We've been sifting away dirt right here and . . . we found a bone," Abram said.
"We put it in this brown bag right here and tell what area, and what it is, sign our initials, and tell the date," his friend added, describing how they label each bag.
"And it's interesting because we know it's a real archaeological site."
David Green, 11, heading into sixth grade at Park City's Colby Elementary, said he especially enjoyed two aspects: "just learning about ancient people and, well . . . I like to dig a lot."
E-MAIL: bau@desnews.com