The extinction of the Neanderthals nearly 30,000 years ago during the last ice age is one of the great puzzles of human evolution—and one that middle school students can tackle with the help of 3-D digital animation in a Museum program this summer.
During the two-week Virtual Worlds Institute: What Happened to the Neanderthals?, students work with Museum scientists and educators to gather fossil, cultural, and genetic evidence from Museum collections and exhibits, then reconstruct a virtual Neanderthal world using software that depicts a photo-realistic ice-age Europe and brings Homo neanderthalensis back to life.
By the end of the course, the students develop their own hypotheses about Neanderthal extinction and present their virtual worlds to friends, family, and Museum scientists.