Kudos to the Kentucky Archaeological Survey for winning the Society for American Archaeology's 2018 AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN PUBLIC EDUCATION for their Davis Bottom History Preservation Project!  Explore the project website to see the outstanding multi-disciplinary, multi-media resources it offers students and interested people of all ages. It truly serves as a model to inspire us. 

Here's the award write-up: "The Kentucky Archaeological Survey and the Davis Bottom History Preservation Project is awarded SAA’s Award for Excellence in Public Education for their combination of advocacy and curriculum development in the field of archaeology. Their extraordinary contributions to documenting the archaeology of an entire working-class neighborhood have included historic preservation, conservation archaeology, cultural resource management, and broad outreach strategy including curriculum development."

Don't forget that the annual Anthropology Day, sponsored by the American Anthropological Association, is also an excellent excuse to do archaeology outreach and collaborate with a variety of anthropologists. 2018 Anthropology Day was held on February 15. On that day, Society for American Archaeology Education & Outreach Manager Beth Pruitt headed to City Center Public Charter School in Washington, DC. to team up with anthropologists from the other sub-fields for the World Anthropology Day celebration. Beth reports that, "Students welcomed us into five classrooms, ranging from second to eighth grade. The artifacts and replicas in our teaching collection worked as tactile aids in each class. Together, we talked about anthropology as a way to understand people and the world better. Through the artifacts, students learned how everyone leaves something behind. Each of those artifacts are pieces of a story that we put together to tell about the past. With the other anthropologists there, we connected our work to the bigger picture of the world around us—everything from emojis to cell phones to chimpanzees!" 

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Project Archaeology has a new place-based curriculum. Investigating Garnet: A Historic Mining Town curriculum guide "encourages educators to take their students out of their classrooms, engage with their communities, and make connections to local historic places." Place-based curricula are one valuable type of mitigation project for regulatory archaeology. If site loss is partial and a site's story can still be told through that part of the site that's not impacted, place-based curricula should be considered as a useful and lasting public contribution.

I had not looked at the Project Archaeology website in a while; it's worth you taking two minutes to do so. There are many useful and interesting educator resources no matter what state you live in. There are a number of terrific, FREE, downloads, including Investigating the First Peoples, the Clovis Child Burial. Check out this great material! 

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Also check out a new, heritage education non-profit, The Heritage Education Network (THEN). In the short time since its start-up, THEN has amassed a 52 page Annotated Bibliography of  heritage education resources for educators and the general public. The is free and available to anyone. The Annotated Bibliography, with searchable database,includes books, journals, magazines, newsletters, classroom materials, videos, blogs, and websites. Paid members get additional benefits.

The Society for American Archaeology's Public Education Committee (PEC) works with a continent-wide network of volunteers in each state and province that serves as a coordinating hub for public education and outreach. Meet one of Connecticut's two PEC State Coordinators. 

"Hello from Connecticut. I'm Brian Jones, Connecticut State Archaeologist. I wear many hats as you all do, including University of Connecticut Department of Anthropology faculty, Connecticut State Museum of Natural History and collections management responsibilities, municipal project review, and public outreach (luckily I am not responsible for Section 106 review!).  I work closely with Mandy Ranslow CTDOT archaeologist and president of the Office of State Archaeology friends group (if you don’t have one, you should!). [Editor's Note: she's also the other PEC State Coordinator!]  I run a one week field school for teachers and another one week field school opportunity for adults.  Throughout the year I also conduct one-day hands on digs for kids groups (with 100 participants most recently - so it's important to have awesome volunteers!).  These are often tied to local historical societies, which I have found to be an important resource.  One of the main things I need to get done in the next year or so is to develop downloadable education packages for teachers and the public with historic preservation/ archaeology/ history focus aimed at kids of various ages and tied to curriculum standards for easier digestion.  Most recently we are developing an urban youth program that will combine archaeology, art, and environmental science in a three station hands-on experience aimed at the Promise Zone community in Hartford."