2020 CAP Update
Welcome to the new decade – 2020! With the start of this new era, and our spring semester at Michigan State University, we are happy to continue working through the Campus Archaeology Program! In addition to working on our individual projects (detailed in our previous blog introducing our 2019 CAP Graduate Fellows), we will be participating and hosting several events in the next few months. Here is a sneak peek into what events our Fellows and Interns will be helping with this semester:
First up, a paper written by our very own Autumn Painter, Jeff Burnett, and Dr. Stacey Camp, will be presented at this year’s Society of Historical Archaeology conference in Boston (Jan 8-11)! The paper is titled: “Translating Campus Archaeology Research into Outreach.” We are so pleased that our outreach events are making a positive impact! Congratulations!
In March, on Thursday the 5th, we will be hosting an in-classroom workshop for a local Lansing school through MSU Science Fest! For this event, students will get the chance to be an archaeologist through our archaeological site kits! Each kit was created based on a real site excavated by either Campus Archaeology or by other archaeology faculty members at MSU. With this activity, students get think like an archaeologist and learn how to interpret artifacts, maps, and photographs to determine what site their kit is from!
Later in March, on Saturday the 14th, we will be hosting an event for the Girl Scouts of Michigan. Last year, our Campus Archaeology Fellows worked hand in hand with Bethany Wilson, the Girl Scout Regional Program and Event Specialist, to create an archaeology badge! Through this event, troops from around the state will attend and work with our Fellows and Interns in order to earn our “Digging into the Past” badge. Our previous blog post, Scout’s Honor, highlights our efforts to create this badge and lists what each scout is required to do in order to get one. We are so excited to host this event for our very own Michigan Girl Scouts!
For those of you who enjoyed our Food Truck event in November of last fall, we are pleased to announce that we will be co-hosting another food event with MSU Culinary Services, Campus Archaeology Throwback Thursday: 150 Years of Campus Cuisine! This event will take place on March 19th at the Brody Dining Hall where historically based cuisine items will be available at the cafe stations. These meals will be based on historical recipes, archival documents, and archaeological research. Join us for a meal that’s historically amazing!
For our next event, on Saturday April 4th, we will be participating in the annual Michigan State University Science Festival Expo Day! At this event, our Fellows and Interns look forward to providing more information on what we do through Campus Archaeology, as well answering any questions visitors might have about the field of archaeology. In addition, an array of activities will be available, such as the opportunity to try reassembling pottery, play our stratigraphy game, and check out some of the cool artifacts we have found all around campus – including those highlighted in some of our older blog posts! Through this outreach opportunity, we hope to share both our love for archaeology and demonstrate how science plays a role in our work!
Finally, for any MSU alumni grandparents, we will also be hosting a session during MSU’s Grandparents University! If you are interested in participating, please check out their website:
https://alumni.msu.edu/learn/on-campus/grandparents-university/
These outreach events, which are fun and educational for all, are not the only things happening in the next few months for those of us in Campus Archaeology. This semester, our CAP Fellows will also continue to work on a number of projects, including the early food project, researching graduate student history at Michigan State University, creating a comprehensive map of our excavations across campus, building a database for our collection of artifacts, and continuing to create new outreach activities!
We look forward to the new semester, the new decade, and to seeing all of you at our outreach activities this spring! Stay tuned for our blog posts to learn more about each event and our CAP projects!