Join Us for our 2024 Idaho History Tour: What's It Worth

One of our most popular tour themes has been the "What's It Worth?" tour, where the students participate in history through a fun trading game. We talk about how people now and in the past made decisions for themselves based on what they decide something is "worth", and then send them out as time-travelers to different stations to hear stories, do activities, and make decisions for themselves.

We gather the students in the amphitheater for an introduction to the theme and a quick fun historic song, then divide up into five clusters to start stations. Each student receives a "Possibles Pouch" and a coin to start them off trading for the game. As they visit each station, they have opportunities to trade, barter, or earn, and the items they have in their pouch at the end of the tour go home with them as souvenirs.

At the Fur Trade station, students learn about the natural resources valued by the local Shoshone-Bannock people in and incoming European fur trades, learn some identifying features of predators and prey animals, play an active game, and each student can choose to trade for small pieces of fur, leather, trade beads, or indigenous foods.

At the Gold Rush station, students get to dig for gold nuggets, wash their finds, have them weighed at the Assay Office, and receive an assay slip documenting their weight on deposit, then tuck a portion of their gold into their pouch to take home. They may also choose to trade gold, their starting coin, or items from other trades for tokens representing things of value to miners.

At the Wagon Train station, we discuss the choices necessary to emigrate in a covered wagon, and explore some "what's valuable to you?" activities around the station, including "driving" the wagon, signing our "Register Rocks", earning a gold nugget by doing trail chores, trying on historic dress-up pieces, trading for Oregon Trail foods, and making a bead craft with a fun tie-in to both child emigrants and Shoshone-Bannock culture.

At the General Store station, students get a brief history on what a general store is for, a tour of history-related items in our store, and the opportunity to spend a bit of money they may choose to bring with them from home on a wide variety of items in the store (prices starting at $1, most items under $5); if students do not have personal money, they're encouraged to explore the store, and we have an additional scavenger hunt to send them out to the historic school bus and sheep wagon, plus some very easy no-prep game options for chaperone-led outdoor fun on historic themes.

We round up everyone back at the amphitheater for a quick conclusion, then dismiss you to your lunch or transportation.

Generally, each student goes home with a trade-goods item, a bit of gold, their assay slip, their jerky (which is usually devoured immediately), and their bead craft, so it's a souvenir-laden experience to help them share their time-travel adventure with friends and family. The whole tour is quick-paced, engaging, and hands-on for students.