The UAB shares educational material to help teach archaeology in the classroom
The Investiga.edu programme, coordinated by research groups from the Department of Prehistory with the aim of disseminating the world of archaeology in schools, launches Investiga.edu en obert, a cross-curricular work initiative offering online educational material for school teachers to use in their classrooms. The first materials made available to teachers are dedicated to the archaeological sites of the Pyrenean caves Montanissell and Sardo.
Since its creation in the 2020/21 academic year, Investiga.edu has grown and aroused the interest of a growing number of education centres of the Pyrenees and pre-Pyrenees regions of Lleida, one of the main areas in which this programme has been carried out.
Thanks to this growth, and with the aim of finding ways to reach as many people in the educational community as possible, the programme's researchers have set up a new open-access line of work: Investiga.edu en obert. Under this title, researchers make available educational dossiers that allow teachers to develop an Investiga.edu project on their own, given that it provides all the steps and resources needed. The project can be of benefit to all secondary and upper secondary students of Catalonia.
The educational dossiers are based on the same methodological pillars used in all Investiga.edu projects: they propose studying a specific archaeological site by following the phases of the scientific method based on activities and challenges. Students work with real archaeological data and replicate some of the disciplines and techniques of archaeology. In addition, audiovisual capsules starring research personnel from different disciplines and research groups are included.
"This new initiative adds to the objectives of the programme to make archaeological research done in the Pyrenees available to the region - and also to the rest of Catalonia - and encourage scientific vocations, while promoting a work that favours the learning skills of students. And also to make known the research teams that are behind the project", says Paloma González Marcén, UAB researcher and coordinator of Investiga.edu.
The first two guides are dedicated to two sites excavated by UAB researchers: the burial cave of Montanissell (Coll de Nargó), from the Bronze Age, and the cave of Sardo (Boí), from the Neolithic period, inaccessible to the public. Both publications have been possible thanks to the support of the Institute for the Development and Promotion of the High Pyrenees and Aran.
The researchers emphasise that the data provided for the teaching material will also allow students to reflect on issues such as family and gender and to break down and rethink prejudices and pre-established images about prehistory, in the case of the Montanissell cave, and about the occupation of the high mountain regions and the anthropisation of the landscape, in the case of the Sardo cave.
The guides can be found at the UAB Digital Repository of Documents website:
Guia didàctica de la Cova del Sardo
Guia didàctica de la Cova de Montanissell
The Investiga.edu team can be contacted via e-mail at: pr.arqueoeduca@uab.cat