ICEAACH outreach

The East Asian Archaeology Forum, a series of illustrated lectures, is held during the academic year in the ICEAACH library. Lectures are free and open to the public. A highlight of past lectures includes:
Gary Crawford on "Late Neolithic Agriculture in North China: An Archaeobotanical Perpective"
Dougald O'Reilly on "Origins of Angkor: Research on the Cambodian Iron Age"
Ken'ichi Sasaki on "Excavations at the Omuro Tumuli (5th-8th cent. AD), Nagano, Japan"
Pyungjoon Ahn on "The Archaeology of Koguryo: Korean Kingdom (1st cent. BC-7th cent. AD)"
Ian Glover on "Excavations at the Ancient Cham Cityat Trà Kieu, Quang Nam Province, Central Viet Nam"

Working closely with the Boston Children's Museum and Boston Public Schools, ICEAACH develops curriculum resources, like the Ancient China Teaching Kit, and provides professional development training for teachers in collaboration with Primary Source (a non-profit center for multicultural and global education), the Boston Children's Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and other educational institutions and museums.

For more educational resources, please visit our links page or refer to our bibliography of East Asian archaeology. Feel free to contact ICEAACH for answers to more specific research questions.

Everett Elementary School students explore teaching kit

A hands-on activity: Fourth-graders from the Edward Everett Elementary School (Dorchester,MA)
explore how bronze was made in ancient China.

Ancient China Teaching Kit: How Archaeology Helps Us Learn About China's Past
designed for teaching grades 3-8
available for nationwide rental through the Boston Children's Museum
kit rental is $75 for a 3-week period

Fun, informative, and filled with replica artifacts and hands-on activities, the Ancient China Teaching Kit, brings amazing archaeological discoveries froom China to the classroom. Available for rental nationwide, the kit is an exciting and essential classroom tool for Social Studies, Language Arts, Fine Arts, Natural Sciences, and World History curricula. Designed with the needs of today's educators in mind, the kit guides teachers through a variety of classroom approaches to life in ancient China. Used in schools around the country, teachers rave about this kit and how it provides all they need to get students excited about China's ancient past.

The kit explores the beginning of settled villages (ca. 5000-2500 BCE) through the time of China's first emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (ca. 221 BCE) whose mausoleum includes the famous terra cotta army. Topics include archaeological discoveries, ancient lifeways (diet, clothing and adornment), early forms of writing, and the invention of bronze metallurgy.

Designed as a comprehensive multimedia presentation, each kit includes a highly illustrated Teacher's Guide to Chinese Archaeology with background reading and classroom exercises, precise replicas of ancient artifacts (including oracle bones, food grains, mineral ores needed to create bronze, and bronze mirrors) for hands-on activities outlined in the accompanying lesson plan book, visual aids (color overhead transparencies and maps), a CD of music being played on a 2500 year-old set of bronze bells excavated in centtral China, and selected books for all ages.

For more information or to rent the kit, contact the Boston Children's Museum at 1-800-370-KITS (5487), ext. 231.