Hi.

I'm Aikem and I'm Quinley, and we're excited to learn all about Michigan history.

Hi.

Welcome to the Michigan History Museum.

I'm Jillian.

I'm going to take you around our museum.

Our permanent galleries cover Michigan history from the glaciers all the way to the 1970s.

I think we'll see half of th exhibits todays walk through.

I happened to notic this giant tree.

What is this?

Oh, yeah well this is Carl.

Carls sort of our mascot here.

He was brought in with a crane when the museum was built.

And it's a Michigan white pine, which is our state tree.

We also have this beautiful mosaic.

It's supposed to represent the Great Lakes All right, let's get going.

We got a lot to see today.

All right, so here w are in our permanent exhibits.

This area of the museum, covers the glaciers and some of our ancient ancestors.

And then we have an area that talks about the history of the Anishinaabeg peopl before they met the Europeans.

Were they native to Michigan?

Yeah.

These are Michigan's native people.

The Potawatomi, the Ojibwe, and the Odawa.

Are these, like, original things, like the necklaces?

Yeah.

So the things that you see in cases those are going to be original artifacts.

A lot of stuff that you see out that's going to be reproductions right?

All right, here we are at our mining exhibit, one of our most popular.

We're here in the mineshaft, looking around.

It's really dark in here.

That looks really far up.

Yeah.

Wow.

Its crazy.

It's actually how deep they went when they mined.

I know it must have been hard to breathe down here.

Yeah.

This is a whole, like, cart.

I'm sure they put these on like the tracks.

Yeah.

It looks dangerous.

Yeah, I'm sure it was.

so did people actually use the tools out there?

Yes.

All of the things that you see in this exhibit were things used in the mines in Upper Peninsula or used by folks who work there.

People had been mining in Michigan for thousands of years, especially native people.

There has been Michigan copper found as far south as South America that came from Michigan wa before Europeans ended up here.

And how relevant would you say mining is now?

Michigan is still a huge producer of iron ore.

There are still many active mines in the Upper Peninsula and all over the Great Lakes Basin.

Hi!

Now, we're in a classroom that is covering the time period about 1880 and 1890.

This exhibit follows five school children, through their day, what they would be doing, going to school, of course.

But then we have their homes.

We have both a middle class home and a working class home, kind of showing you the different chores that they did, their bedrooms, and then what they did after they were kids when they grew up.

A little bit different than today, right?

Yeah, This is the stuff you get on like the SAT that I'm reading here.

Yeah.

I wonder what food they ate.

I wonder like if it's similar $4.50 a week?

Gas prices?

No Im kidding.

$4.50 a week is insane.

All right, Aikem you got this.

Morning exercises.

Song.

Good Morning, New Day.

Recitation copy bookwork.

Language session.

Language lesson.

Choose the right word.

We can do more good by the good then, in any other way... I don't know.

Gas is only $0.23.

Not bad at all.

I had so much fun.

What was your favorite part?

I love learning about what life was like in the past.

My favorite was the mining shafts.

See you next time.