Teaching Ideas: Integrating Archaeology in the High School Classroom

Pennsylvania high school teacher MaryPat Evans has been integrating archaeological techniques in the classroom as individual student projects and special modules in her Chemistry, Biology, and General Physical Science classes for years. In 2005, she began a 38-week long Forensic Science course, including such topics as blood evidence, fingerprinting, and trace physical analysis of hair, soil, and fibers. Three of the weeks were dedicated to the excavation of a 'death scene', a simulated dig constructed using two donated deer carcasses and conducted under the direction of Pennsylvania archaeologist Kurt Carr.

The Forensic Science class has been an enormous success, not just in the numbers of students enrolled in this elective but in that several of her students have gone on to pursue related careers in science. It is just one of several projects MaryPat has undertaken over the years; and recently she answered a few questions for us, concerning her use of archaeology in the classroom and the successes of the Forensic Science class.

• Teaching Ideas: Integrating Archaeology in the High School Classroom, an Interview with MaryPat Evans
• Forensic Science, MaryPat's class syllabus at Susquehanna Township Highschool
• Deer Death Scene Investigations, Susquehanna Township High School
• Student Projects in Archaeology, The Londonderry School in Harrisburg
• Educational Resources in Archaeology from About
• More Interviews with Archaeologists
• Secondary School Teachers

Photographs of the simulated death scene investigations during the Forensic Science class were taken in May 2006 and provided courtesy MaryPat Evans.