Teaching Kids About Archeology With an Outdoor Project

Significance

• Archeology students study past cultures, including prehistoric and historic time periods, which range from the dinosaur period through the Colonial period in America. Teach kids that while archeology does consist of important historical findings, such as the recent Golden Bell found in Jerusalem, it isn't just the study of prehistoric animals -- or the clues derived from artifacts found in foreign lands -- that benefit society from this field of research. Archeology also helps us provide future generations with information about the "mortality, nutrition and quality of life" of previous generations, says Erika Martin Seibert of the National Park Service/University of Maryland.

Outdoor Dig Site Project

• Create an archeological dig site for your child in your own backyard. For younger children build a sandbox area atop the ground. For older children, evacuate a deeper space and fill with sand and surround with boulders or add a makeshift search camp. Place arrowhead rocks, man-made tools of rock, cord and wooden sticks beneath mounds of sand, so your junior archeologist can dig them up on your planned outdoor excursions. Plant something different every weekend, teaching your child about new material from historical periods you are discussing with her. Hide some non-historical items, too, to illustrate not everything found at a dig is historical.

Absolute Dating Project

• Archeologists don't just dig items up; they have to assign an estimated historical date to them, too. This "dating" of artifacts consists of two basic methods: relative dating and absolute dating. Provide your kids with a tree stump that has exposed internal tree rings. Ask them to count the number of rings in the tree's trunk. Each ring represents one year, giving archeologists an approximate date for the tree life of your stump. This is an example of the absolute method of archeological dating. Tree ring dating is specifically known as dendrochronology.

Relative Dating Project

• Educate your kids about how to determine the relative date of an object. Create a space outdoors that contains a jar of pennies, a dated letter and several old books with copyright dates stamped on the inside. Ask youth to put the items in chronological order based upon the relative date stamped on the items, with the oldest dated item being the most historical. Have them write down their findings, as an archeologist would do.