Cross-curricular work is done usually in a one-room classroom where an educator takes one idea and runs that through a variety of subjects. Since teachers of one-room classes rarely are specialists in each subject they are asked to teach, it is important to provide aids to them and archaeology is one area that can easily be used cross-curricularly. This blog will demonstrate how archaeology can be used in a variety of subjects.
History is the subject most likely to be used with archaeology. It is important to note that certain words should be at the core of a study of history. Among which are “sources (primary/secondary)”, “evidence”, “artifact”, “anachronism”, “bias”, and “chronology”. Students should know the difference between the different types of sources. They should be presented with evidence and appreciate that evidence must be interpreted. It is crucial that they know that both documents, as well as, physical objects have a bias. They need to know how to order things in time. And they need to learn how to communicate their findings.
One way to teach young (and old) students to order history is to ask them to think in three ways: think of things that happened before “I” was born, think of things that happened since “I” was born, and to order these events correctly. Since nearly all young children (ages 7/8) have a world-view that is orientated to and around the family, most will answer these with the birthdays of brothers and sisters either older or younger. Whatever they come up with, take those birth years and ask them to order them from oldest to newest. In this way they learn that dates represent things older or younger than each other.
Another way is to teach them about a period in time (say Pompeii A.D. 79) and then show them the film “Pompeii – the Last Days” and ask them a series of questions of the accuracy between the evidence presented in class with the portrayal of it in the film.
History is easy, what about some other subjects? In Language studies it is important to get students to learn how to listen, see, feel, etc and then communicate those senses to another person. If you have taken the children to a heritage site, ask them to listen. What do they hear? In what ways might this be similar or dissimilar to when people used to live here. Younger children can play “I Spy” in which they are asked to describe something they see while the rest of the class tries to guess. Children can be given photos of various parts of the site and be asked to find them (perhaps even having another child attempt to describe the photo for them while they look). They can be asked to write captions (usually in 25 words or less) teaching them to be concise. They can be asked to write an account for a local newspaper (having an actual paper to look at for style examples) of their visit to the site.
The ability to describe something is very important in archaeology and in language skills. Give the students each, one potato. Ask them to write a description of it. Then collect all the potatoes and ask each student in turn to read their description and then locate their potato. When we, as archaeologists, write a description of artifacts or objects, we need to write in a way that allows future scholars to recognize what we see.
Science is another area where archaeology is obviously connected. Scientific enquiry asks scientists to obtain and present evidence, explain and interpret observations, measurements, and conclusions, to us a wide range of methods to represent data, and to analyze physical change. Archaeological techniques are to record field work such as monuments, archaeological features, artifacts, surveys, analyze data (for example a computer analysis of artifact scatters), and analyze artifacts (such as the wear of flint axes).
Science also looks at life processes, nutrition, and life environments. Archaeology analyzes bones, seeds, and the environments in which people lived. Science examines materials and their properties, so does archaeology (example the use of x-rays of metal artifacts). There are physical properties that science studies such as the use of artificial satellites to observe the earth, electricity, and magnetism. Archaeology uses aerial studies such as satellite images, air-born radar, and simple high-altitude aerial photography. Also archaeologists use various techniques for dating, such as: pollen, dendrochronology, radiocarbon, archaeomagnetic, and thermoluminescence dating techneques.
Mathematics is also an area where archaeology can be used, particularly in the study of measurements, using and applying numbers, shapes and spaces, and handling data. Since archaeologists survey, measure draw, and record landscapes, sites, and finds students can be asked to do the same. Non-standard means of measurement (ie span, pace, thumb, body length, etc) can be used to measure a site and then replicated back on the school grounds to allow students to get a grasp of size.
Another project that brings in many aspects of the curriculum is data gathering. Take students to a grave yard at a local church. Have them plot the locations of the grave stones (survey work). Have them note the dates on the tombstones and mark off where certain people were buried at various periods. Have them look and compare (comparative study) the shapes and decorations of tomb stones and note the trends in tombstone design. They also can note the “symbols of death” and how they change. When all of this information is collected (and by the way, it is much more fun and useful for the student to gather the data themselves rather than just be fed it in a classroom) have them present their results. It is likely that this sort of work has not been done yet on that cemetery. This is real archaeology work that can be published and presented to the overseeing body of the site. Just that knowledge alone makes the project more fun because the students will realize that what they are doing is “real”.
The same sorts of connections, I’m sure are becoming obvious. Geography is basic survey work and map design. This is exactly what archaeologists do. The planning of space and routes is directly connected to archaeology and museums. Music and Dance are expressive arts. Why have the students draw the same apple over and over again? Why not take them to a heritage site and have them draw something that they have not experienced before such as window design, etc. The making of a class “mosaic” using small tiles is another project to tie history together with art. And religious studies is an easy connection. Avoid trying to “prove” anything, but simply help them to understand context better and also the material culture of certain religious structures and artifacts.
To become a successful archaeologist it is important to be a good scientist, mathematician, geographer, historian, artist, communicator, etc. All this study is demonstrating is that when you need an example outside of the textbook or an idea for a project, archaeology provides a deep well that can be returned to repeatedly and will also be popular with the students.
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