Power Paws trains Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers in 90 commands to assist adults and children with disabilities. Their main focus is on mobility impairments, such as paraplegics and quadriplegics, but they also provide dogs to the hearing impaired and those with psycho/social disabilities, such as phobias and Post Traumatic Distress Disorder and are beginning train to dogs to assist those with diabetes. The assistance dogs learn a multitude of commands including how to open and close doors and drawers, turn lights on and off, push elevator buttons and retrieve dropped items.

KVIT 90.7 The Goldmine will be on-hand broadcasting live from AzMNH to help promote the museum and Power Paws event. For more information about the AzMNH visit our website at www.AzMNH.org.

Power Paws trains Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers in 90 commands to assist adults and children with disabilities. Their main focus is on mobility impairments, such as paraplegics and quadriplegics, but they also provide dogs to the hearing impaired and psycho/social disabilities, such as fears, phobias and Post Traumatic Distress Disorder and are beginning train to dogs to assist those with diabetes. The assistance dogs learn a multitude of commands including how to open and close doors and drawers, turn lights on and off, push elevator buttons and retrieve dropped items.

For general information about the Arizona Museum of Natural History, visit http://www.azmnh.org.

Equipped with an explorer’s map, each museum visitor will follow life-sized dinosaur tracks that will guide them through seven interactive learning stations located throughout the museum. Starting at the beginning of time in the new Origins exhibit, visitors will follow the trail stopping at various stations that will include Dinosaur Hall and panning for gold. The trail ends at the Discovery Lab where visitors will engage in various multi-sensory learning activities such as making fossils, exploring colors and spirals in nature and more, aimed to serve those who may have various physical or cognitive limitations.

The $6.oo per person cost includes museum admission. Pre-registration is required.

For more information or to pre-register, please contact Alice at 480.644.5907 or alice.jung@mesaaz.gov. For general information about the Arizona Museum of Natural History, visit http://www.azmnh.org.

The City of Mesa Employees Community Spirit Program is a charitable fund raising and volunteer organization provided for and managed by City employees, with the support of City management. This year-round program provides employees with opportunities to help make our community a better place to live through volunteer and fundraising efforts.

The City’s Community Spirit program adopts a different Mesa school each year to receive monetary donations, school supplies, food for dinner on Thanksgiving or gifts for Christmas and this year, Hawthorne Elementary School was chosen. City employees are being encouraged to participate by bringing school supplies that will be donated to the school.

If any members of the community would like to participate in the drive, a donation drop box will be provided at the Arizona Museum of Natural History. This is the perfect opportunity to encourage kids to help others by donating school supplies such as backpacks, notebooks, pencils and other classroom items while inspiring wonder, respect and understanding for the natural and cultural history of the Southwest.

For more information, contact Arizona Museum of Natural History at 480-644-2230 or visit http://www.azmnh.org.

It’s an opportunity for students who are home schooled to experience enlightening educational demonstrations, create a colorful craft and engage in exciting action packed activities. The cost is $2 for museum members and $6 for nonmembers. The price includes admission to the museum before and after the group activities. All exhibit stations will close at 3 p.m. to allow for time to visit the other museum exhibitions.

To register, contact Alice Jung at the Arizona Museum of Natural History at (480) 644-5907 or alice.jung@mesaaz.gov.

Join master storyteller Bobby Norfolk for a compelling afternoon of story followed by a workshop on how to integrate story into your museum, garden, or national park. Norfolk portrays York, William Clark’s slave, who was the only black member of the “Corps of Discovery,” the official name of the band of intrepid explorers whose epic journey across our continent became immortalized in the Lewis and Clark expedition. Wearing a historical costume, Norfolk tells the fascinating story of York’s long struggle towards freedom. He begins with his early life as a slave, experiences during the long and dangerous journey, his return to slavery following the trip and finally the problems and controversies involved with his emancipation. The event is geared towards adults and is not recommended for children.

An internationally known story performer and teaching artist, and three-time Emmy Award winner and Parents’ Choice honoree, Bobby Norfolk is one of the most popular and dynamic story-educators in America today. Before he became a storyteller, Bobby spent 10 years as a park ranger.

The event is sponsored by the Arizona Museum of Natural History, Mesa Storytelling Festival and South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute. The Mesa Storytelling Festival, the valley’s largest storytelling event, is scheduled Oct. 23- 24 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Mesa Arts Center, 1 E. Main St. For more information, visit http://www.mesaartscenter.com

Paleontologists from the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff made an once-in-a-lifetime find in 2000 with discovery of a single toe bone during an excavation in southern Utah. The discovery led to the recovery of the most complete Therizinosaur skeleton ever found.

While all dinosaurs lived on land, the Therizinosaur was found in a location that was the bottom of the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway, an ancient sea that covered the middle of North America. But how did the whole animal, 93 million years ago, get buried in a seafloor, 60 miles from shore? Come to the Arizona Museum of Natural History to find the answer.

The exhibit will include fossil beds and a life-size Therizinosaur that is a free-standing skeleton, cast from the original bones of the 13-foot tall, one-ton sickle-clawed and feathered dinosaur. It is the first mounted interpretation of the animal’s stance and posture.

The opening day of the exhibit will also feature a talk by Museum of Northern Arizona Paleontologist Dr. David Gillette, the exhibit curator, who led the excavation team that discovered the Therizinosaur remains. “The Curator’s Story of Therizinosaur” will be held at 2 p.m. in the Arizona Museum of Natural History Theatre.
For more information, contact Arizona Museum of Natural History Curator of Education Kathy Eastman at (480) 644-5662, or visit http://www.azmnh.org.