April 1, 2010: Today was our introductory day at Cureton Elementary for this project. I had an hour with each Fourth Grade class. I brought in 17 shoe boxes filled with rice and hidden artifacts from the Heinlenville archeological dig site in Japantown, San Jose., California. I provided measuring tapes (paper ones from IKEA) for each student. There were 3-5 artifacts in each box and the students worked in pairs discovering the contents of the boxes. Students sifted their boxes with small paper cups and dumped the rice in to paper bags until they found all the artifacts.
Students digging up real artifacts
Cataloging discoveries
Google Earth ready to go and boxes ready for first class. Note: no rice on the floor yet!
Students watching Google Earth. We also had eight computers set up with Google Earth
Once all the artifacts were found (I had a master sheet listing contents of each box to verify) we did a walk around the classroom. It was nice for the students to have a chance to see what their peers discovered in their boxes. Artifacts were returned to the boxes and refilled with rice for the next group.
TRACING PATH TO GUM SAN USING GOOGLE EARTH At this point the students began to explore Google Earth tracing the path from Canton China to San Francisco (a four to eight week boat trip in mid to late 1800's) and then to San Jose. They also zoomed in on the exact location of Heinlenville by typing in "Jackson Street, San Jose, CA" and then locating the bus yard near Sixth Street.
At the end of the class I handed out the puzzle drawing activity for them to do at home. Hopefully some will bring these back completed. I'd like to use a few in animation sequences explaining what archeology is.