December 01, 2023
Meghan O'Toole
Graff's class brings archaeology to fourth graders
Ten sociology and anthropology students accompanied Associate Professor of Anthropology Rebecca Graff to Ravinia Elementary School in Highland Park to teach fourth-grade students about archaeology in November.
Tabby Andrews ’24, Ian Cox ’24, Riley Groark ’24, Mia Lee ’24, Joey Ridarelli ’24, Ivette Cardenas ’25, Anela Elze ’25, Sofia Santana ’25, Theresa Wilhite ’25, and Cecilia Adams ’26 assisted Graff in teaching fourth graders about archaeology.
The students helped set up and run a sandbox dig for the fourth graders. The Ravinia Elementary students were able to experience a mock archaeological dig.
Elze, a history and sociology and anthropology double major with a minor in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies, enjoyed connecting with the young students, who were excited to learn more about archaeology.
“We hid plates in the sandbox, and the fourth graders found them,” Elze explained. “It was cool to reflect on how I would have been excited in fourth grade and how I would have been just as pumped and invested in the activity. Now that I am really studying these fields, it gave me a lot of perspective.”
Wilhite explained that some of the elementary students were disappointed to learn there would be no dinosaurs involved in the dig.
“There were some disappointed looks when we informed them we don’t deal with dinosaurs at all,” she said. “After many rounds of questions, the kids were split into groups, and we were off. I was instantly asked a million questions about a million things as I took my group outside, and I did my best to answer them all. As all the groups made it out and the digging started there was instant, happy, chaos."
Elze also appreciated the opportunity to gain practical experience.
“This wasn’t a real dig, but it did contextualize what we do in class,” she said. “It was the same idea of going in and doing something fun and talking about what we learned in another sense, not just answering questions in class.”