Scientists at the University of Georgia’s Center for Applied Isotope Study use an accelerator mass spectrometer to count Carbon-14 isotopes to determine the age of ancient material.
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Students learn about the atlatl, a prehistoric throwing tool that uses leverage, then build and test replicas to measure the increase in throwing distance compared to throwing by hand. They discuss...
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Pottery is one of the most common types of artifacts found in the archaeological record. Students will learn how and why archaeologists study pottery and explore how pottery, along with other objects...
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Students will design their own fort and identify its parts using colonial forts from South Carolina as models.
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Students become archaeologists for a day, creating scaled drawings of a mock excavation unit to document its features and artifacts. Through this activity, they explore the importance of accurate...
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Students will learn how maps are important primary resources for studying the past and how archaeologists can use historical maps to locate archaeological sites. This lesson plan covers how maps are...
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Students will explore the unique features and characteristics of South Carolina’s five landform regions: the Coastal Zone, the Coastal Plain (divided between the Inner and Outer Coastal Plain), the...
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This lesson uses tabby, a historical building material local to coastal South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, to explore chemical reactions, changes in the state of matter during chemical reactions...
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Students design a mock archaeological site and simulate a survey using punch holes to represent shovel test pits. They then discuss the limitations of this method and explore how geophysics offers a...
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In this lesson plan, students will learn about the unique and complicated threat coastal erosion, sea level rise, and climate change poses to cultural sites. Students will examine how maritime...
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This lesson plan is intended to introduce students to critical cartography, a subfield of geography that recognizes maps as inherently political objects subject to bias and hidden meaning. In this...
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Students brainstorm examples of artifacts archaeologists might find in prehistoric South Carolina and then analyze photos of real artifacts to understand how archaeologists use them to learn about...
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Students build a miniature landscape in a sandbox and use tools to measure elevations at various points. By converting these measurements and coloring a graph, they create a 2D elevation model similar...
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Students learn about mollusks, their characteristics and habitats, and how their shells provide clues to the diet of ancient hunter-gatherers who lived on the South Carolina coast thousands of years...
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Students explore the concept of radioactive decay and half-life through a penny-flipping activity, then learn how this principle is used in radiocarbon dating to estimate the age of ancient organic...
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This lesson plan explores how archaeologists study and classify projectile points (commonly referred to as arrowheads) into different “types” to learn about past people and cultures. After learning...
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Students build model beaches and use waves to simulate coastal erosion, observing how it disturbs and destroys archaeological sites. They then explore engineering solutions to reduce erosion and...
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This lesson plan covers the topic of Black refugee settlements (otherwise known as contraband camps) in the American Civil War. In this lesson, students will learn how hundreds of thousands of runaway...
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Rice is the most consumed grain in the world, feeding more than 3 billion people every day. Students will learn about rice’s diversity and trace its history from its domestication in China 12,000...
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