Secondary education and public archeology as a tool for teaching science, literacy and interpersonal relations across demograhic boundaries

Tanana Chiefs Conference, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) is a Native non-profit organization that is actively engaged in a variety of educational and land management programs through which it delivers federally funded government services to highly disadvantaged indigenous Athabaskan tribes and individuals in Alaska. The proposed project is an extension of a TCC developed innovative program that increases educational outcomes for at-risk youth through the medium of archaeological field research. The TCC approach combines student participation in weeklong scientific expeditions with guided study in Alaskan wilderness settings. By design, the field and learning situation are emotionally intense, in a way that kindles individual commitment and nurture small-group social solidarity. Also by design, TCC draws the student and instructor cohorts from a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural demographic pool. In this way, students gather and synthesize effective learning styles from a range of worldviews and behavioral expectations. This approach also advances a second,TCC goal, the management of cultural resources mandate under the National Historic Preservation Act through archaeological research. Under TCCs present proposal, these goal related activities will expand by offering more sessions each summer to secondary and undergraduate students from a greater number of educational institutions in Alaska.