Fruitville Elementary Joins New College Archaeology Day

Fruitville Elementary students in fourth and fifth grades will get the chance to be junior archaeologists and learn about the history and cultures of early Florida as they spend a day with their family members in and around the New College of Florida Public Archaeology Lab.

The event, from 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 1, will be hosted by anthropology professor Uzi Baram and undergraduate students at the state-designated honors college for the liberal arts.

“The history of Sarasota is centered on the Sarasota Bay watershed, said Andrew Jaffee, Fruitville Elementary science teacher. “This special day is an opportunity for our young students to learn how resources influenced where people lived, and shaped the ways in which they lived.”

New College students will guide about 200 Fruitville students and family members as they explore learn about the ecology and history of the region from earliest times to the near present, with a focus on the 19th-century peoples of the region: Anglo-American pioneers, Seminoles, maroons and Cuban fishermen.

The college students will show elementary students points of interest outside and inside the lab, demonstrating the tools of subsistence for living on Sarasota Bay, explaining the archaeology and history of the Sarasota watershed and demonstrating the role of surveying and map-making in early European exploration of the region. Hands-on activities will teach students about local architecture and Sarasota’s connection to the larger world.

“Our students will give the Fruitville children a sense of what it took for people who lived in this region centuries ago to catch food to eat and live off the land and the water,” explained Baram.

The day at the archeology lab is made possible by the partnership with New College and EdExploreSRQ.com, an initiative that connects classrooms to the community’s cultural treasures.

The New College Public Archaeology Lab is located at 5800 Bay Shore Road, Building 7, on the New College of Florida campus in Sarasota.

About EdExploreSRQ.com

      In 2010, The Patterson Foundation and the Sarasota County School District joined with the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County (Alliance), the Science and Environment Council of Sarasota County (SEC), the Education Foundation of Sarasota County and 34 local cultural organizations to create an initiative called Cultural Connections with K-12 Sarasota Students. The initiative links teachers with organizations offering programs that align with state instructional standards, ensuring that the programs help students learn the content they are expected to master during the school year. To support the Cultural Connections initiative, The Patterson Foundation supported the development of an innovative communications tool called EdExploreSRQ.com.

The website, http://EdExploreSRQ.com, is an interactive database educators can use to search for cultural activities or “explorations” that support the standards they are teaching and to find possible sources of funding for student participation. The site helps teachers discover these opportunities and make them more accessible to students.