Four River Valley Civilizations

The Terra Cotta Soldier Dig - Culminating Archaeology Unit Activity

Learn more about China and Qin Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor, by watching this 20 minute video and exploring the Important Links feature on this blog.

Independent Research Project Presentations

The Eighth Grade Ancient History Scholars branched out and researched any topic they found interesting.  They could research anything, from any time period, anywhere in the world, as long as they could tie it to archaeology. 

The Eighth Graders became the expert on their research topic.  They created visual aids to help their "students" understand the information being presented as they taught a lesson on their topic.

 The targeted skills for this project were:

 1) Evaluating Web Sites
 2) Proper Documentation and Turabian Bibliography Format

Field Trip - WSU Anthropology Department

Are you curious?  Ask an Eighth Grade Ancient History Scholar what he/she learned. Check out the Asmat links in Important Links on the right side of this blog.

Interpreting Artifacts from Unique Cultures

Eighth Grade Ancient History Scholars Make Inferences about "Rescued" Artifacts!

After creating their own unique civilization and creating artifacts representing their culture's universals, the students received a box of "found" artifacts and after measuring, drawing, and cataloging each artifact, they gave their best interpretations of the culture which produced the artifacts.  There were many discussions about the evidence left behind, and some of the languages were very difficult to decipher.

You can visit the "Museum of Unique Treasures" in the Middle School Library to see the inferences they made.

Archaeology - Creating a Culture

(Group activities with individual components)

Creating a Civilization:

• Teams of students studied cultural universals which represent a society, such as government, economics, attitude toward the unknown, ethics and values. 
• They then did "backward" archaeology by creating a civilization in the past, present, or future, and deciding which cultural universals were the most important to that society. Each team member made artifacts which would best represent those aspects of their society. 
•  They also created a written language, leaving behind a "Rosetta Stone" with their culture's language, English, and Latin (for extra credit!) on it, and artifacts with only their language on them.

• Soon another team will try to interpret their artifacts, and make inferences about what was important to their culture.

Archaeology Unit - Upcoming Events and Assignments

Upcoming Events in Ancient History Class:
10/6  -  Individual Artifacts Due (two per person)
10/8  -  Special Presentation - Kansas Archaeology by Steve Elmore
10/9 - Team Mural Due (one per team)
10/9 - Language on already existing artifacts due - one with only your team's language, one a "Rosetta Stone" with the same thing written in both your language and English (you can add it in Latin for extra credit) - one set of two artifacts per team
10/10 - One post on your Ancient History e-Text blog due
10/13 - Summary Paragraphs A (three paragraphs) and F-2 (one paragraph) due
10/13 - Exciting "DIG" Activity!
10/14 - Parents welcome to visit our Museum of Unique Treasures in MS Library
10/16 - Team Report Due (divided by team to work on individually)
10/17 - Archaeology Vocabulary Quiz
10/20 - Special Presentation - Wichita City Archaeologist Sheila Hauser
10/21 -  Independent Research Projects due
10/22 - Field Trip to WSU Anthropology Department - Museum, Archaeology Lab, and Bio Lab with Dr. Peer Moore-Jansen 
10/27 - Suprise Excavation!

The Eighth Grade Ancient History scholars are beginning their first research project this week. 

•  Each student will choose a topic relating in some way to archaeology.  It can be from any point in history, and relate to any place in the world.  This is their chance to investigate something they find personally interesting.  

• The students will research and become an expert on this topic.  

• Then they will teach a lesson to the class presenting their research.  

• They must each create a visual project to help get their information across to their "students."  (They will NOT write a report - only a Bibliography of their sources.)

•  The research components emphasized during this project are evaluating web sources and proper bibliography formatting and documentation. 

•  Please ask an eighth grader to show you their Independent Research Project Forms for more information.