Public Outreach Off-Season

Hello All, my name is Genevieve (Genna) Perry and I have continued my position as the Fort St. Joseph Intern this year. I have been with the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project since 2015 and it has been a great pleasure to watch students as they evolve from new archaeologists that have difficulty distinguishing a rock from a stone flake or a piece of a clay pipe from calcined bone, to becoming those that teach others about these things. Thankfully, many of these new teachers of archaeology also continue on to do lab work in the off-season. Apart from artifact analysis, inventory, digitizing field-notes, artifact photography, and creation of promotional documents, the other essential part to being a lab student is helping keep our public outreach alive. 

Students Meghan and Hailey talking to
Michigan Archaeology Day visitors

We attend several events through-out the year to help educate others, especially children, about archaeology and Fort St. Joseph. This semester, we attended two of those events. One of which was Michigan Archaeology Day, which is held in Lansing, MI at the Michigan Historical Museum. This event hosts projects and universities from around the state to focus on and highlight the archaeology that is being done at the local level. This year, a record 1,400 people attended the event. We were able to bring our “Recent Finds” artifact case, the updated site map, the introductory Open House banner, a slideshow demonstrating field activities, flyers and brochures. We interacted with people of all ages, educating them about the specific archaeology that we do at Fort St. Joseph and getting them interested in the various ways we integrate the public during the field season. The event usually takes place at the end of October; stay updated on our social media to find out when it will be held in 2018 and we will see you there! 

Students Kaylee, Meghan, and Hailey teaching Lake
Center Elementary Students about stratigraphy as they
color their artifacts during I <3 STEM Night

The other public outreach event that we participated in this year was Portage Lake Center Elementary I <3 STEM Night. This event hosts multiple STEM programs from Western Michigan University and around the state, such as WMU Chem Club, WMU Engineers, Home Depot, MDOT, KAMSC, Best Buy, Air Zoo, Eaton, among many others. We interacted with children K-5, teaching them about the importance of stratigraphy (layers of soil) and where we might expect to find certain artifacts. We also brought along our “Recent Finds” artifact case, slide show, and brochures to educate parents about Fort St. Joseph. The Project is extremely fortunate to have an active role in not only the community of Niles, but in the community of Kalamazoo as well. A vital component to public archaeology is maintaining a presence within the community to help keep local history in the forefront of peoples’ minds. Stay tuned to hear about the many other events that we will attend in the spring semester, such as WMU’s MLK Career Cruising Event and the annual El Sol Elementary visit to the Anthropology Department! Thank you all for following along with us throughout this semester, we appreciate your support and hope to see you all in the summer!

-       - Genna