Introducing Archaeology 101! This project is a collaborative CHI project between myself and Jeffrey Painter. At the launch, this project will be an interactive website that can be used to introduce elementary and middle school students (and other interested parties) to archaeology!
The goal is for this website to be used in the classroom to help teachers educate their students about archaeology. For this project, we are partnering with two wonderful grade school teachers to help us construct lessons, tailor information and activities, and make sure that the content meets current national grade school educational standards. These partners are Steven Callahan (2nd grade teacher, Chatham, Illinois) and Sara Callahan (4th grade teacher, Rochester, Illinois), both of which have experience teaching at different grade levels and incorporating technology into the classroom.
Currently, there are not many online tools for teaching kids about archaeology, and those that do exist are static information sheets or worksheets that can be printed. We are targeting this audience in order to introduce archaeology to students at a younger age and encourage their interest in the subject. While it is more common now, students typically are not introduced to archaeology until college, limiting the number of people who understand what archaeology is and how we learn about the past. In addition, we want the project to be useful for teachers (like our fellow project members), as they are now being asked to teach about the ancient past more in the classroom, but do not have much experience with the topic.
Our project will include a few interactive elements (to start) that will give students opportunities to engage with archaeology as a discipline and learn more about what archaeologists actually do. The website will also have a resources tab for teachers that will include instructions for the website as well as other useful links and ideas.
Read Jeff’s blog tomorrow to learn about the functionality of the website, the technology we will use to create it, and details about the archaeological content of our Archaeology 101 project!
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