Going native

Ten-year-olds Peyton Ebel and Paul Charlier play a pair of Mojave Indians using a mortar and pestle to grind pretzels into flour at the Desert Discovery Center Thursday.

Peyton, Paul and the rest of their peers in Cheryl Marino’s fourth-grade Cameron Elementary School class had their faces tattooed like Mojave Indians, made pottery and wore fake dreadlocks like the natives who used to inhabit the area. Another group of students from the same class made volcano cookies and igneous rock cookies as they learned about the desert’s geology.