Introduction

            One of the exciting challenges in teaching middle school is to develop interdisciplinary units that will best utilize the talents of your colleagues as well as excite and challenge your students.  Such a fun and educationally sound unit can be developed around the theme of archaeology.  A combination of the following disciplines can be included in the unit:  art, science, computer science, English, history, and mathematics.  High school teachers with an interest in Indiana Jones can also incorporate some of these ideas into their courses.

  By the time the students complete the unit, all of the students will be able to do the following:

1. describe the day in the life of an archaeologist,

2. identify the terminology associated with archaeology and its related disciplines,

3. construct copies of artifacts of the peoples studied,

4. construct top plans and scale drawings both reducing and increasing the size,

5. describe the role archaeology has in recovering the past.

6. manipulate a computer program relating to the Middle East and archaeology.

            Middle school math books have activities that teach the use of scale drawings and grids.  These activities are a prelude to drawing archaeological top plans.  This unit will also provide instructions how to plot artifacts found in the "archaeological dig" to be set up somewhere on school grounds.  Instructions explain how to set up and reuse the same site year after year.

          Other activities are suggested so that the middle school student can research Egyptian, Mayan, Anasazi, or other cultures.  This research will enable the art, English, and history teachers, as well as the media specialist, to incorporate their expertise into the unit. The outcomes for the unit can include  a research paper, short stories, essays, and art projects on whatever culture is being studied. 

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