Interview With
Franke Smith
Hickory Hill was opened to the public as a museum in 2004, and in 2005 we hosted our first Dig History! summer day camp. By 2010, the program expanded to include one week of archaeology camp and two weeks of Eco-Adventures camp.
We are located in Thomson, Georgia about thirty miles west of Augusta, Georgia.
Our primary goal is to ensure that our campers are given a safe space to enjoy, explore, and learn. Our activities are designed to expose campers to new ideas about ecology, archaeology, history, conservation, and discovery while being highly engaging and enjoyable.
We really operate two separate camps. The first is called Eco-Adventures. Campers that attend Eco-Adventures will explore our 250 acres, learn about ecology and the complex relationships between plants and animals in our environment, as well as, organic gardening, the human impact and use of our environment, and conservation. Students will harvest heirloom vegetables from the camp garden, use those vegetables to create dishes, learn about the care of chickens, and participate in a host of craft and outdoor activities geared towards an appreciation of the natural world. Our second camp, Dig History!, is an archaeology camp, and is unique in that, not only do we train the students in proper archaeological field methods, but we actually allow them to participate in the ongoing excavation of the Jefferson Publishing Plant site. Again our focus is to keep the students engaged with history and archaeology by providing hands on activities that allow them to learn key concepts and archaeological principles while having a whole lot of fun.
Each summer we offer two weeklong sessions of Eco-Adventures and one weeklong session of Dig History! Our camps are day camps and last from Monday to Friday, from 9am to 4pm daily. Eco-Adventures is for student’s ages 10-16 and Dig History! is for ages 11-17. Each weeklong session is only $60. We provide snacks, but campers should bring their own bag lunch.
As Educator, I am the Summer Camp and each summer we hire an intern, a college or graduate student with experience in ecology, education, history, and archaeology. The educator and intern are the primary teachers and counselors for the day camps, but we also rely on the expertise of many employees at our parent company the Watson-Brown Foundation. Our Curator has advanced degrees in archaeology and our groundskeeper has degrees in agriculture and has a true passion for the natural world. We also partner with experts in environmental education from across the state and bring in guest presenters and teachers for special activities.
Our offices at Hickory Hill are open Monday-Friday from 10am-5pm, but we do close for field trips. I recommend calling the office at 706-595-7777 or emailing fsmith@hickory-hill.org. We can then send all of the necessary paperwork to our parents via email or snail mail.
