Artifact Bag

Today in class we learned a new way to make history more exciting and memorable for students.  This fun way is by using an artifact bag, an artifact bag is a bag that contains different artifacts that all have something in common.  A teacher could use an artifact bag when getting ready to start a new topic in a social studies unit or throughout the unit to get the students more engaged and to have a hands-on experience.  

In class, we worked in our fieldwork groups to try the artifact bag activity.  We choose our bags and opened the artifacts one by one.  One of the artifacts that we had was a set of Russian nesting dolls which are used for decoration and entertainment in Russia.  Our next artifact was called gzhel which is a small porcelain plate.  It is both white and blue and it is also used for decoration and often times you can see candlesticks and dinnerware made out of it.  Our last artifact was a certificate that was written in Russian.  After translating it we came to find out that it belonged to our professor and it was a certificate that she received from a science school in Russia.  All of these artifacts were in the bag because they all had something to do with Russia and they represented the culture and history in Russia.  The nesting dolls and gzhel showed the art and decoration that Russia and how it is very precise.

After we gathered all of our thoughts about the artifact bag that we had and researched about each of the artifacts we presented our bag to the rest of the class.  It was really neat to see what the other groups had in their bag and how their artifacts also related to Russia and its culture.  In a typical artifact bag activity, the teacher can also use a book and a website to have the students gather more information on the artifacts before presenting.  This activity was a really great way to learn more about the Russian culture!  It will definitely be a good activity to use with students in the classroom!