Jefferson Somerset students dig into archeology

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Jefferson Somerset's relentless pursuit of the school's theme for the year: “Rising to the Challenge” continues to spur their students to seek and respond to new educational experiences and face new challenges.
By seeking new opportunities and facing new challenges, Jefferson Somerset's students broaden their horizons and increase their chances of success in the world ahead of them.
These experiences and challenges also help expand their knowledge base and skill level in areas such as critical thinking, teamwork, leadership and employable skills.
One such new experience that the school's students were excited to be involved in was the new joint course offered through the Aucilla Research Institute (ARI) in geography and archaeology.
This course is offering students both classroom-based learning and hands-on experience in these fields.
The ARI is hosting a multidisciplinary course designed to introduce the students to two academic areas: geography and archaeology, including an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS) technology.
The experience began with an introductory classroom discussion on local archaeological history and field methods and then an introduction to site mapping and GIS. The first three-hour session of the course was hosted by ACI in the first week of March.
The students are being provided with hands-on field and lab activities, including survey stake outs of a sampling grid and digging for artifacts at each grid point at a Native American archaeological site.
Students are attending the three-hour course for seven class periods and studying how to:

• Classify found artifacts.
• Calculate geospatial coordinates of excavation locations using the GIS system for plotting field data.
• Create topography maps of the study area.
• Create a digital story map for the project.

The administration of Jefferson Somerset would like to thank the Aucilla Research Institute for this exciting opportunity for their students and to Jefferson County School Board member Gladys Roann-Watson for providing transportation for their students to attend this event.