"Tons" is a strong word. When I heard that we would need 42 TONS of rock for our Roman Road Project, I gasped in disbelief. Today, those rocks were delivered, all 42 tons of them. My 6th grade students, with me at the time, were a tad excited. I immediately began to question all my life choices.
When two giant dump trucks of rocks show up to your school, it's a different kind of school day, and it wasn't exactly smooth sailing...if I'm allowed to mix metaphors.
Our project has been funded in large part by a local STEM granting organization, but these rocks were actually donated by a local stone supplier who is fascinated by our project. I met Chris Abadie, Technical Advisor for
Pine Bluff and Gravel Co. when he showed up ahead of the rock trucks so he could see the future road site. He came out of pure curiosity - he has never seen a Roman road being built. His stone company supplies many local projects, such as the
Comite River Diversion Canal, with rocks from around the country. Ours came from Kentucky. No doubt the Romans would have sourced their rocks and stone locally wherever they were building the next road.
Our big problem today involved soggy ground. The trucks which already weigh a LOT would surely get stuck as they delivered their loads in the grassy spot we had picked out. We had to make the difficult decision to dump the rocks closer to our school's basketball courts and further from our building site. Even with the trucks just beyond the concrete, the first one got stuck in the soggy ground and had to get pulled out by the other truck. Those truck drivers know what they're doing!
The dump was amazing! And honestly, it's not really that much. Stones just weigh a LOT. One of my classes got to enjoy the scene with me. After we reveled in the height of the piles and the gigantic stones they contain, we pondered how in the world we're gonna move them! We'll address that challenge on Thursday. We don't want to do everything the modern way - after all, we are building a Roman road the Roman way. Stay tuned...
Watch dump #1 here, and dump #2 here.
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