Learning local history through archaeology

This year, three groups of students at Fallbrook schools have had the opportunity to learn about local history in a different way, through Project Archaeology. Guided by facilitator Annemarie Cox, students in the GATE program (Gifted and Talented Education) at Fallbrook Street, Iowa Street and Live Oak schools learned how Native Americans lived in this area centuries ago and how to interpret the artifacts they left behind.

Cox, the program coordinator at the San Diego Archaeological Center, modified her summer camp program into an eight month long series of lessons with the prompting of the late Lee LaFave, an Iowa Street School teacher who died in November 2011. She brought all the necessary materials with her on the third Friday of each month October through May to teach one group at a time for an hour and a half.

Project Archaeology is used in schools nation-wide for third through sixth graders. Cox, the southern region facilitator for California, has been teaching the program for nine years. She said, “It is important to engage [the students] in scientific literacy and use high end vocabulary.”

She adapts the lessons to better match the history of this area. So, while the students learned the difference between a petroglyph (carving in rock) and a pictograph (a drawn picture) they also learned the local rock art is mostly painted rather than carved because the granitic hillsides around here are too hard to carve.

After watching the May lesson, substitute teacher Susan Hunter commented, “This is wonderful. I think this is a nice enriching program; it opens up their minds to things they should know about.” She accompanied the 19 Fallbrook Street School students who walked over to Iowa Street School, formerly Maie Ellis School, for their session. (Cox took her materials over to Live Oak School for the afternoon session).

The lessons also combined the fundamentals of archaeology with creative expression. So, a lesson on pottery in January not only included sherd (pottery remnants) classification, but also the making of clay pots. May’s lesson on rock art combined both a study of cupules (indentations pounded into rock) and the curvilinear symbols of local rock art with bleach painting and carving into corrugated cardboard.

Cox explained that while the program combines science and history it also teaches the students stewardship, “the responsibility to take care of the earth.” They learn that there are serious penalties for destroying rock art by spraying it with graffiti.

Jenny Besne, mother of a Fallbrook Street student, attended all of the sessions and said she has “been very impressed with the quality of the program; [Cox] teaches them all about concepts and vocabulary, to think and come up with answers.”

At the end of the May session, the students signed up to be experts in different archaeological areas for their much anticipated visit to the archaeological center in San Pasqual Valley next month, the culmination of the program. The areas included geology, chipped stone, ground stone, botany and shell analysis, all of which will be used in analyzing the artifacts they will find while conducting an archaeological site investigation in a replicated dig.

In talking about the program, Iowa Street School teacher Danni Fieri said, “It fits in well with the science and history curriculum of several grade levels. Students have been engaged in activities which challenge them to think like archaeologists and anthropologists, examining artifacts and fossils from local sites.” Fifteen students each participated from Iowa Street and Live Oak Schools.

While most schools cannot afford to bus students out to the archaeological center or to have Cox come to their campus, teachers can learn how to teach Project Archaeology themselves by attending a two day workshop this summer, Aug. 11 and 12.

The workshop will include presentations by archaeologists and Native Americans and will demonstrate how to engage students with multi-disciplinary lessons, group activities, and open-ended questions. One day will be spent at the center and one day at the Kumeyaay-Ipai Interpretive Center in Poway.

For more information, Cox can be reached at (760) 291-0370 or [email protected]. Information about the center can be found at

http://www.sandiegoarchaeology.org.

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