I became a social studies teacher for three reasons. One, I believed in the importance of understanding and appreciating history and prehistory. Two, I believed in the idea that "hands on" and innovative ways of teaching were critical to the future of our young people. Three, I wanted to show more people the value of archaeological research in the world today. This article describes a program I have developed to satisfy my need to improve public understanding and support for archeological study and preservation.

In 1994 I developed a ten student, two week, archeology adventure in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways of Missouri. The incredible success and the positive response from everyone involved motivated me to attempt another project. I believe strongly in extending the classroom beyond the four traditional walls, and have strong support from a number of colleagues. Mr. Jim Cudworth, and Ms. Sharon Henry, agreed to accompany me and 12 students on a one week archeological adventure in Hopewell National Historic Park, Chillicothe, Ohio during the summer of 1995. Both projects have been in cooperation with the National Park Service's Midwest Archeological Center. Dr. Mark Lynott has coordinated efforts to provide our students with exceptional field and life experience, and Mr. Forest Frost has provided professional crew leadership and guidance. I could never adequately express my appreciation for the efforts, cooperation and understanding.

Milton Hershey School is a small, private, K-12, residential, school for underprivileged children located in Hershey, PA. We have developed a Summer of Opportunities Program to provide our students with a variety of educational and recreational activities as an alternative to "hanging out" all summer at home. An archeological field school provides the perfect opportunity to blend, education, job and life skills, with adventure. A typical trip involves travel, living together (either tents or park housing arrangements), a few days of team building, site seeing, recreation, and then a week to ten days of actual work on the archeological site. Work involves training which begins with reading and discussions before arrival, debriefing, discussions, and lectures, in camp and during meals, and hands- on, "part of the crew" teaching. The students are divided up with professional crew members for one on one direction and supervision during on-site time. The students participate in all aspects of the excavation, including mapping, screening, digging, sampling, filling out forms, and recording notes. Basically anything the regular crew does, our students are also involved. It is simply an incredible experience for our students to see the utility of things they have learned in the classroom and the dynamics of working with professionals.

The specific educational goals we attempt to achieve are:

1. An appreciation and understand of the value of archeological research. The value of knowledge gained, and respect for, and preservation, of cultural resources.
2. An understanding of the connection between classroom skills and the requirements in the working world. Examples: English classes and note writing/record keeping, Geometry and mapping, History and Geography for site knowledge, Science and Chemistry for geology and soils, the list goes on and on.
3. An understanding of the life skills required to organize and operate a trip of this magnitude. Travel planning, meal preparation, group organization, housing, etc.
4. A development of life skills required by group living, group dynamics, and the impacts of sometimes stressful living and working conditions.
5. A development of problems solving and resolution skills. The ability to analyze situations and surmise the possible solutions, socially, academically, and personally.

The success of our adventures cannot be measured by simple assessment tools. I have had endless conversations about how the archeology field school changed their understanding of the true working world. I have also heard repeatedly, how nervous students were to get involved, but after the first couple days they truly understand the importance of what they are doing, and (more importantly) how capable and responsible they can be with important tasks. I have had 100% return by students who are still eligible.

All of this could not be possible without the cooperation of wonderful people, giving of their time and their hearts. All of the archeologists and educators who have supported and encouraged the students. The administrative support of Milton Hershey School and the National Park Service. I cannot thank these people enough for providing the students with a truly life changing experience. Young people truly are our future, and maybe by providing a window on the past we can also prepare them for the future.

Annabel Rosario Pottery

My name is Annabel Rosario and I'm a student at Milton Hershey School. I have recently went on an archeological dig for a week along with college students and friends. I did three different station there. At first I screened and shoveled (this is what you don't do unless you have gloves). Then I floated and helped to mark the bags, or measure the dirt. I also dug on the flood plain, which many years ago was flooded, so they dug there in order to find pieces of information that floated down. I thought this was a pretty neat experience. I really enjoyed this because you were well rewarded when you found anything that the Indians made. Especially when you think you found a white talc rock but then when you stuck it on your tongue, it stuck like crazy. Later on, you teacher tells you that was bone on your tongue!

Many people, when they think of an archeological excavation, they usually think they'll find some nice pebbles, some dirt, and more dirt. Or for you movie go'ers, you'd see Indiana Jones' doing his death defying acts in order to get the rich artifacts. But there are many different things you can fine, like bone or tools, I'm particularly interested in the lovely pottery.

Each pottery piece is placed in a category so an archeologist can have references. In order to have references, you need information. There are three different series of pottery Scioto, Hopewellian, and Southern. Once you get the pottery in a series there is a type you place it under. Example from a book: Miami Series, type stamped denate. You also record the information about how it was made, width, texture, hardness, color, decorations, rim shape, lip, body, bottom, thickness, rim shreds (range and mean), geographical range, chronological location, and probable relationships (where it might have originated). Jarred Buck, who was a teacher's assistant, told me that pottery has similar designs which helped the Indians to communicate. Like Illinois and Ohio had similar pottery designs which was most likely caused by trading. So Indians did not just communicate with signals, they used the designs in the pottery also. I went on two archeological digs in the past two years and I learned a whole lot of interesting information. Maybe next time I go digging I'll see you there!

Victoria L. Bond "Grandma, I'm Home."

" Victoria, what did you find," my grandmother asked. When she spoke those words something happened to me. I wished I could tell her about the big dinosaur bone or the ancient hunk calendar with a prehistoric Brad Pitt etched in stone, but I couldn't. Nobody found anything like that. I, however, explained to her what fire cracked rock was while I fostered the spirit of adventure and excitement. I was trying to be Indiana Jones. My grandmother, however, had a great knowledge of archeology, greater than my own, before I had been on my first dig. She asked me rather hesitatingly, "Vick, didn't you sift dirt through wire screens... didn't you do basic things."../index.html"Did I do basic things ... I did the most basic and important of things," I thought. I replied to my grandmother, however, a solemn and respectful, "Yes." Once my grandmother cracked the surface I was genuinely excited to recap my experience for her.

I told her how hot it was. Her eyes opened with amazement when she examined my clean, but brown stained clothes. Her nose opened a great deal when she smelled the sneakers I worked in. Her mind was at my disposal as I explained the Hopewell people and their enchanting burial mounds. She asked question after question about the site of Chillicothe, Ohio, and the college students that were on their first field school. It seemed that she found a certain satisfaction in knowing that her granddaughter, a junior in high school, had not had the same academic experience as the college students, but was able to do the same work. I was able to apply basic skills that I have been learning all my life.

Among those skills was teamwork. While at the site I made an absolute effort to be of any help. I tried to help others and do all that I could. As I sifted, I acted as though there was no job more important. I realized that for one week it was my duty to take history out of the ground. If I made a mistake or acted foolish a piece of history was gone forever. It possibly could never be regained. That was something that I could not bare to have on my conscience.

I appreciate the history in the ground. I now see that every time a new road or mini-mall is built some of that history is lost. While taking a break on the site, my advisor on the dig, Randy Farmer, asked me to turn around. It was beautiful. I could see forever. There was tall green grass being moved by the gentle wind, followed by hill after hill covered with trees. It seemed as though the trees could reach the sky. As I stood in awe, Mr. Farmer said, "This is the cool part of the world."

My grandmother seemed to be moved by his words. She approached the center window in the living room as we completed the question - answer session and said, "You don't know just how right he is."

Vernon Edwards Jurassic Park and Search for the Body of King Tut, This Was Not!

The summer of '95 had new meaning for Vernon Edwards. While most of my friends were enjoying air-conditioning back at home in Harrisburg, PA, I was somewhere called Chillicothe, Ohio in the sweltering heat digging dirt. "Digging dirt? For what?" some might ask. It I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention, or in a very wisenheimer mood, I might reply something to the effect of "I was digging my own early grave as I was sure I'd die from that heat." What I was actually doing was participating in the excavation of an archaeological site that had been worked on by some college students for a "month and some" prior to my party's arrival. This field school was a required course for the college students, but I was privileged to be there because, for me and most of those that had come with me, this was "something new".

The site was believed to be one where some prehistoric American Indians sometimes called the Mound Builders had possibly been. Many mysteries still surround these peoples, but it is known that they built large burial mounds and enclosures, and they also were skilled artists and weapon makers. A theory surrounding them is that they may have been at least semi-nomadic over a relatively small area. That is why we were checking out the particular area we were in. Directly next to a river and partially in the river's old flood plain (a dam upstream now keeps the area from flooding), these prehistoric peoples could have spent some time there on a seasonal basis based upon flood cycles.

This is where I became interested. I wanted to know how the climate and topography of the area affected these Mound Builders' activities. Taking into consideration all the changes that have occurred to the area over many years, I was able to come up with some thoughts of my own using some of the information we found in the dig, and some of our own reactions to the weather. For one, I was quickly able to establish why this may have been a prime spot for people to live: water. Being right near a river, these people needed and took advantage of water, especially during the weather like we were having. Even we tried to take advantage of the water. This was noticed as everyone wanted to go down by the river where we were "floating" dirt in river water to find any hidden charcoal or seeds that would have given us information about these people. (As one may assume, mud is the by-product of dirt and water. The reason people were so cool was, well, mud wars on a massive scale occurred daily. Flotation was the "coolest" job, but not necessarily the cleanest).

Another way this area could have been important was again based upon the river being near. We kept finding these snail shells in the dirt samples we took up. Now on the flood plain area, this may have been normal, but on the area that would have been dry (usually) there was a high concentration of these shells. It was figured that these snails were a food source, and when they were eaten, large masses would be piled up in the same place, like a garbage area. As far as the weather is concerned, it is possible that the semi-nomadic nature of the Mound Builders was an actual fact. With the flood plain having a cycle of dryness then submersion, the Mound Builders may have only been on this area during times of dryness for whatever reasons, then, of course, moved on to somewhere else. A final thing about the Mound Builders that I am sure of is that they worked hard, even in hot, humid weather. Even though those in field school didn't actually "have to" work through the heat, we did. Since it was a matter of life and death for these prehistoric Indians, they "had to". So while we had the comforts of bug repellent for those unrelenting "sweat bees" and "biting flies", the Mound Builders just endured all of the negatives of their environment to survive. (All of that without any bug repellent. That's amazing because I know I wanted to go home the first time I found my water bottle empty and a "sweat bee" bit me).

That experience gave me a lot to go home (where there was air-conditioning) with. For one, I got to "play" in dirt for a week, and wasn't looked upon like some loony who never grew up. Another thing is I came back with a renewed appreciation for the history and peoples that preceded me and my time. I'm sure that some presumptions based upon previous knowledge (television and movies like "Raiders of the Lost Ark") had some of us newcomers to archaeology believing we'd find some skeletons of people and valuable treasures that would have tempted one of these "pot-humters" to smuggle it away in order to make a profit. That wasn't the case, however, as the only bone we found was of some animal's shoulder, and the only treasures we found were more information towards understanding an ancient people (not saying that is a bad thing, but it just doesn't make for as good a movie.)