Summer SAVY 2018: Session 4, Day 5 – Traveling Through Time (Rising 2nd)
I can’t believe our week is over! Our budding archaeologists did such an amazing job this week! They faced a ton of challenging concepts and activities, but just like real archaeologists, our students were eager to learn and ready to solve every archaeological problem we faced. Ms. Emily and I really loved meeting you all this morning during Open House!! Our students were so eager to share their archaeological knowledge with you! After Open House, we spent the rest of the day working as real archaeologists on our mock excavations! Excavation is one of the most important components of archaeological research, and our students took this task very seriously. Even so, everyone still had tons of fun uncovering the artifacts we buried yesterday! Our students were also able to see how our stratigraphy (soil layers) changed since yesterday. This models the natural and cultural processes that change the landscape over hundreds and thousands of years. Our students now have a much better understanding of how archaeological sites become buried and how landscapes change over time. Following excavations, we handed out everyone’s certificates and had a small celebration!! Finally, our budding archaeologists attempted to take the pottery fragments they had found during excavations and piece them back together. On Monday, each group painted their pots with a specific motif. Some of these pots ended up distributed throughout the archaeological site! By refitting these back together, we were able to model the social, economic, and political connections that occur between people living across an archaeological site. The students had a lot of fun with this challenge!
If you want to learn more about archaeological research happening here in Tennessee, the Tennessee Council for Professional Archaeology is hosting the 2nd Annual TN Archaeology Day on September 8, 2018 at Bells Bend State Park. This is an awesome program! Students will actually get to participate in real excavations at a real archaeological site! For more information, please see this link: https://www.facebook.com/events/187531508547653/.
Thank you so much for allowing Ms. Emily and I to work with your students this week! We had so much fun, and we hope all of the students did, as well. Enjoy the rest of your summer!
Phyllis Johnson
Thanks For Coming to Our Open House
