So, why should you have the ArchaeoBus visit your school?
A Georgia teacher answers: Do your students groan every time you ask them to take out their social studies books? Do you get blank stares when you ask students to discuss specific time periods in history?
If so, Georgia’s Mobile Archaeology Classroom—the ArchaeoBus—will provide hands-on and minds-on activities to enthuse your students about learning. Archaeology is a great tool for turning on the minds of students, as well as a great motivational tool. More important, it is a discipline capable of instruction in a wide variety of skills. Archaeology is a holistic academic and intellectual approach that involves all subject areas, social skills, and conceptual skills. This is a unique approach to teaching traditional material and will expand your students’ abilities to think and reason.
Archaeology is fun! The name evokes an image of adventures to far-off and exotic places. Students become enthusiastic learners as they become detectives to learn about their past. Archaeology provides an opportunity to apply skills and knowledge from other disciplines and strengthen them through application. Archaeology can be used to teach critical thinking skills and problem solving. Plus it enhances small group instruction and cooperative learning. Teachers can use archaeology for instruction that pertains to their specific pedagogical needs. A social studies teacher can emphasize how artifacts provide information about different cultures and historic time periods; the math teacher can focus on mapping and the measurements and gridding that are involved in the process; the science teacher can use archaeology to demonstrate how the scientific method is used; the language arts teacher can focus on the historic research component and report writing. The application possibilities for the teacher are endless.
Georgia’s Mobile Archaeology Classroom is an innovative approach to student learning. It offers the opportunity for students and teachers to leave the traditional four-walled classroom and use a new approach to learn state standards!
Posted online on Thursday, November 12th, 2009