Lesson Plans

AIA Lesson Plans

How Archaeology Works

Trash Talks (Grades 5-12) Safely-collected trash teaches lessons about archaeology and interpretation.

What Will Survive (Grades 6-10) Starting with their own classrooms, students assess what will survive for archaeologists of the future to discover and interpret.

Simulated Digs

Basics of Archaeology for Simulated Digs Introduction to archaeology and the AIA Simulated Digs.

Layer Cake Dig (Grades K-2) Young students dig and eat the layers of an archaeological site they can see from the side.

Transparent Shoebox Dig (Grades 2-3) The Transparent Shoebox Dig allows young elementary school students to create stratigraphy and understand the logic of careful excavation.

Shoebox Dig (Grades 3-6) The Shoebox Dig in a cardboard box provides older elementary students the experience of digging a small site top down, sight unseen. Can be modified for Middle School.

Shoebox Dig and Transparent Shoebox Dig Photos

Schoolyard Dig (Grades 6-12) This simulated one-layer site prepared in the ground offers Middle or High Schoolers a realistic but limited experience of excavation.

Record Sheets for Simulated Digs

Mystery Cemetery

Mystery Cemetery (Grades 6 and older) A Halloween challenge: using maps and images (or a 3D cemetery if desired), students interpret an already-excavated site to solve a puzzle.

Mystery Cemetery Maps Map 1, Map 1 in black and white without a key so students can create their own if the teacher prefers, Map 2 after further excavation of the Mystery Cemetery.

Mystery Cemetery Photos for students to reference for more information on graves

Mystery Cemetery Answer Key: Email programs@archaeological.org

Ancient Cultures

Aztec Codex (Grades 6-7) Students learn about the culture of the Aztecs, the Spanish conquest, and the codices about indigenous life created in Spanish and Náhuatl. They illustrate their own simple codex. 

Greek and Roman

Ancient Greek Art: Archaic and Classical Styles (Grades 8-12 grade and older) An exercise in looking at Greek art of the Archaic and Classical periods and creating an artwork in one ancient style.

Ancient Greek Vase Painting Students look at examples of archaic and classical Greek vase painting and create a clay tile in black-figure and red-figure techniques.

Roman Feast A Roman Feast can be a fun, educational, and cross-curricular event for anyone who studies Greco-Roman antiquity. Teachers can borrow, adapt, and add to ideas found here.

Roman Clothing Project This simple overview of Roman clothing teaches the social stratigraphy implied by clothes with a hands-on exercise.

• Roman Clothing Project: Clothing in Roman Art This accompaniment to the clothing project illustrates tunics and togas in Roman art and in reconstructions.

• Roman Clothing Project Patterns

Mesopotamia and Egypt

And more lesson plans coming soon!

Third-party Lesson Plans

1. American School of Classical Studies at Athens has a series of more than a dozen lesson plans and teacher resources on Greco-Roman civilization and the medieval Mediterranean world.
2. Metropolitan Museum of Art, K-12 lesson plans (Ancient Mesopotamia – Literacy, Then & Now; Muses vs. Sirens; Ancient Animals at Work; Power in Mesopotamia; Architecture and the Natural World).
3. Crow Canyon Archaeological Center Classroom Resources. The Archaeology of Cactus Run: A Paper Excavation; Pueblo Indian History for Kids and more.
4. National Park Service Junior Ranger Archaeology Program.
5. “Think Like an Archaeologist” provides 6th graders with a comprehensive introduction to the entire archaeological process through four classroom sessions, plus one field visit.