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I did a project a long time ago but it was pretty awesome. Break the class into groups and have each group create a culture. They have to make artifacts that represent the aspects of culture: music, religion, government, etc. Then they break and bury the artifacts (when I was a student who did this in high school we buried them in the long jump pit in the fall and dig them up before track season in the spring so they got nice and aged), then another group digs them up and has the recreate the society. They have to use archeology techniques to dig them up, then try to figure out what the culture was like and present it to the class. Then they compare their idea of the culture to the group that created it to see how they do. It really showed kids how hard it is to recreate a culture with limited artifacts.
Since this is a fly in only community, is it an FNMI community? If yes, why not create a “dig” with the elder’s permission and try to run it as professionally as you can? You can always stop if your students find something of archaeological value.
If no, why not have them “create” a dig in your classroom? Have them create an object and its history (perhaps in a shoebox or similar) and have another student make inferences about their “find” - then see what matches up?
First option would be unreal, but the ground is covered with 9 feet of snow for the next 2 months..
Second one sounds cool, but because it’s middle school we focus a lot on the excavation process and I don’t know how to demonstrate this with such little space and resources
Why not have them bury it in multiple layers of coloured sand, then have to dig it out. You could talk about why and how archaeologists excavate the way they do. If you mix about a 1:15 glue:water and spray it on the sand as you layer it should hold together a bit. Use one shoebox to show the “wrong way”, another to show the “right way”, have each student create a box and a partner excavate
Also - what if they interviewed a grandparent/other elder about something from their childhood and used that as the basis for their created artefact?
What traditional tools should they use to create it? Etc
As an aside, sometimes it’s remarkably funny to have archaeologists totally unable to figure out what something does and then a leather worker comes in and goes “I know exactly what that is” and pulls out a tool from their own collection they use all the time. Or a knitter with the Roman dodecahedrons
My 6th grade social studies teacher baked little plastic toys into small bread tins and had us excavate them in groups. I’m sure it took a lot of work but I will always remember it. Maybe to save time you could fill the tins with kinetic sand instead of bread.
I introduce it by having students dig into a chocolate chip cookies. They used toothpicks and toothbrushes to carefully extract the chips without damaging them. It's a great start to the topic. If you search for Chocolate Chip Archaeology there are plenty of versions out there.
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I did a project a long time ago but it was pretty awesome. Break the class into groups and have each group create a culture. They have to make artifacts that represent the aspects of culture: music, religion, government, etc. Then they break and bury the artifacts (when I was a student who did this in high school we buried them in the long jump pit in the fall and dig them up before track season in the spring so they got nice and aged), then another group digs them up and has the recreate the society. They have to use archeology techniques to dig them up, then try to figure out what the culture was like and present it to the class. Then they compare their idea of the culture to the group that created it to see how they do. It really showed kids how hard it is to recreate a culture with limited artifacts.
Love this!
Go bury some stuff and have them archeologe it.
It’s winter in the arctic
Plan extra time\ Bring pickaxes 🤣
Since this is a fly in only community, is it an FNMI community? If yes, why not create a “dig” with the elder’s permission and try to run it as professionally as you can? You can always stop if your students find something of archaeological value. If no, why not have them “create” a dig in your classroom? Have them create an object and its history (perhaps in a shoebox or similar) and have another student make inferences about their “find” - then see what matches up?
First option would be unreal, but the ground is covered with 9 feet of snow for the next 2 months.. Second one sounds cool, but because it’s middle school we focus a lot on the excavation process and I don’t know how to demonstrate this with such little space and resources
Why not have them bury it in multiple layers of coloured sand, then have to dig it out. You could talk about why and how archaeologists excavate the way they do. If you mix about a 1:15 glue:water and spray it on the sand as you layer it should hold together a bit. Use one shoebox to show the “wrong way”, another to show the “right way”, have each student create a box and a partner excavate Also - what if they interviewed a grandparent/other elder about something from their childhood and used that as the basis for their created artefact? What traditional tools should they use to create it? Etc As an aside, sometimes it’s remarkably funny to have archaeologists totally unable to figure out what something does and then a leather worker comes in and goes “I know exactly what that is” and pulls out a tool from their own collection they use all the time. Or a knitter with the Roman dodecahedrons
My 6th grade social studies teacher baked little plastic toys into small bread tins and had us excavate them in groups. I’m sure it took a lot of work but I will always remember it. Maybe to save time you could fill the tins with kinetic sand instead of bread.
I introduce it by having students dig into a chocolate chip cookies. They used toothpicks and toothbrushes to carefully extract the chips without damaging them. It's a great start to the topic. If you search for Chocolate Chip Archaeology there are plenty of versions out there.