Shorecrest School

Seventh Graders Study Native Americans, Practice Archaeology

Source/Author: David Hodgson, Middle School History Teacher
September 25, 2015
Middle School News


Students in Mr. Hodgson’s seventh grade American Experience classes spent some time early in the year studying Native Americans, particularly those groups that once inhabited Florida. Noting the diversity of the various American Indian tribes, students engaged in conversations about pop-culture depictions of Native Americans versus the reality they learned through their studies.

Threads of archaeology are woven into the study. According to Mr. Hodgson, “Archaeology is a hands-on way of getting them to understand the past through what was left behind.” Students again pitted their pop-culture perception of archaeology against the discipline’s reality, noting that it’s not all big digs and excavations. They learned to scan and survey, looking for bits of 'material culture' and put their skills into practice during a field experience at a shell midden on Boca Ciega Bay. Looking for evidence of human habitation, a number of students found pottery shards at the site - which dates to the Archaic period (6500 to 1000 BCE). After sharing the shards and recording the data, students returned the pieces to maintain the site’s defining characteristic.

Next in the unit, students will reverse engineer artifacts of their own - they will break pieces of pottery, then analyze the shards to determine the sizes and types of the original vessels. Including archaeological practices with the study of history is a way to move beyond rote memorization of historical facts to engage students in critical thinking and problem-solving.

(photos)


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