Donate your archaeology photos for education

[YorkBadger]

Please help!

My role at the CBA is to promote and support the use of archaeology and the past within education. Having surveyed teachers, one of the resounding responses is that there is a general lack of usable material that's free for educational use.

The Archaeology Image Bank (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/learning/image_bank/)
was set up by the Higher Education Academy to help with this by providing a place where people could donate images in the knowledge that they would only be used for educational purposes and not for commercial gain.

But there is a problem..... not enough people know about it and not enough people are donating images to it.

The CBA will be advertising this free and immensely beneficial service to teachers and encouraging them to try it out. We would like to ask you to have a look through your images and any that you have that relate to archaeology, we ask that you consider donating them to the Image Bank.

Images can be so powerful in capturing the imaginations of children and can spark an interest in our subject that can last their entire lives - at 5 years old the images that sparked my interest in archaeology where the Sutton Hoo helmet and the gold face mask from Mycenae (and the idea that you could "gaze upon the face of Agamemnon" even if I know now that it's not really Agamemnon!). Images are also invaluable when trying to impart understanding of a concept, site, period or artefact.

The images will have to be your own property (i.e. you took the photo or your company paid an employee to do so etc).

We want anything related to archaeology - Archaeological sites, built heritage, monuments, artefacts, ecofacts, equipment being used, experimental archaeology, re-enactment, etc.

To donate images just go the website of the Archaeology Image Bank and click on "Donating images" you then register (takes only a few moments) and start sending in your images. I will be adding images myself in the next week as I am currently scanning my way through 27 years worth of prints (I know why I love digital now!).

In addition teachers say that having some plans, sections or geophysics plots etc would be of use - especially to those tutors teaching the A level archaeology course. If you have any of these you would be willing to share with teachers you can upload those as image files to the image bank or I will be putting together some resources on a variety of site types, periods etc and would welcome the use of some real examples in the resources. These resources will go on the CBA education website and again will be based on a free for educational, non-comercial use. You can contact me directly with information about these.

The image bank is not set up for animated images or video so if you have any of those please get in touch with me and I'll organise a way for the CBA to host those on the same basis.

If you have any questions please get in touch.

Many thanks for your help,

Andy Holland.

Education Project Officer (11 ? 1:face-thinks:,
Council for British Archaeology,
York.
Tel: 01904 671417

[YorkBadger]

Oh and in addition if you know of examples where archaeology is being used in schools - or where units/individuals are providing outreach to schools and colleges then please let me know - I may already know about a particular example but I'd rather be told twice than not know!

I can use such examples as evidence of the invaluable role archaeology can play in learning and hence argue for more recognition from government, etc.

Thanks

[Unitof1]

YorkBadger if you go to the Charity Commission pages you will find address from across the country for a lot of Education charities based on archaeology who I imagine will be only too willing to help as education is what they are dedicated to being seen to be doing, although there might be some issues to worry about client confidentiality/copyright as they mainly work in commercial archaeology. Good Luck

[deposit-it]

I have been to my children's primary for the last few years, just going over generally the Romans in Year 3 and the Greeks in Year 5. While I've been doing it on an adhoc basis and with my rather variable quality teaching collection (of bits of bone and pot etc) the kids have loved it. I've also done some teenage (11-13) bits which went down well and am looking at possibly organising an excavation at a school in some old air raid shelters.

I have a pal who has also done this kind of 'outreach'. It would be really useful to promote this more (and maybe get a budget for it). I'm sure schools would pay for it if was seen as properly educational - I know it's valued but suspect it's viewed along the same lines as a 'parent helping out in the classroom'. If there was a central bank of people to contact in particular areas that may help. I've thought about doing more, but you can't do everything for free!

[helenclaire]

I'm not sure how relevant this is but at the training dig I am on in Hartlepool we are running a children's trench, a small 4m x 4m pit where some archaeology is buried ("Sir, did you put this stuff in for us to find?"..."How could you say such a thing!") and the kids love it. I wish I could have done this when I was at school. No idea if this is a reasonable idea or not, just thought I'd let you know its working really well here. I only wish I was in that trench, they find so much more than in ours for some strange reason...