The two Barrera children Sandra, 6, and Regina, 4, are fascinated by the explanation of a dinosaur fossil shown by a Wildland Conservancy volunteer from the Oak Ridge Reserve at the Inland Empire Science Festival held at the Western Science Center in Hemet on April 29. Valley News/Tony Ault photo
For the younger children it was a day of wonder. For the older children it was a day of acute curiosity at the annual Inland Empire Science Festival held at the Western Science Center in Hemet Saturday, April 29.Paleontologists, archeologists and other scientists were on hand to answer questions about the animals and people that once roamed earth. Lending to the answers were replicas of Ice Age Mastodon fossils, human skulls and other prehistoric artifacts presented by the University of California Riverside, Woodbury University and the Claremont Schools.Children dug up plastic prehistoric animal bones and other items in boxes of dirt. Live rattlesnakes in specimen boxes could be seen safely, and boas found in California and South America were handled and wrapped around visitors’
