Motivation and Community in Public Archaeology Evaluation

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Gibb.

Organizing and implementing programs that engage defined and undefined groups of non-archaeologists can be time-consuming and demanding of resources. Most of us enter into them with good humor and a mixture of joy and stress. My approach to public engagement, saturated with selfishness, is through the concept of citizen science, and the evaluation measures summarized in this presentation reflect how well aspects of the program meet my needs. I intend to advocate for embracing, rather than just...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Catherine J Brandon.

The explicit use of adult learning theory should help align the goals of the pubic and of public archaeology. The programs reviewed included 1560’s Spanish fort, 1630’s coastal settlement, early 1800’s presidential plantation, and a Shaker village and were an academic field-school, state-funded site, private foundation, and business venture. Three senior archaeologists at each program answered a ten-question survey about public archaeology (definitions, goals, site selection) and educational...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tyler Smith. Keilani Hernandez. Laura Clark. Samantha Seals.

There are few public archaeology outreach programs around the nation with concise or overarching programming standards and currently minimal data on the effectiveness of these programs (Kirkland & Carr, 2010). As organizations focus on meaningful impact with the public in terms of what are participants’ motivation for attending, perceptions of the programs, and variables affecting their appreciation, and perceptions of archaeology, they can improve their quality. Illustrations from case studies...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kate Ellenberger. Katherine Seeber.

At the beginning of the Masters Program in Public Archaeology (MAPA) at Binghamton University, we worked with the Director to create a digital identity, write a social media strategy, and develop a student blogging group for the program. Student blog posts on contemporary political events and scholarly debates have garnered attention from the archaeological community for the two years since. In this paper, we evaluate the public response to the MAPA blog by analyzing social media posts that link...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert P. Connolly.

This paper discusses the evaluation criteria in the creation and implementation of cultural heritage educational programs over a four-year period in rural communities in the Ancash Region of Peru. Over the length of the projects, we made a decisive shift from an approach of creating products for a community to one where we worked with the community in program development.  We determined that a co-creative approach that prioritized the expressed needs of the community resulted in cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Timo.

The Exploring Joara Foundation, Inc. (EJF) was conceived as an outreach and fundraising non-profit arm of the Berry Site excavations. Very quickly, the board-led decision was made to expand and diversify outreach efforts. As EJF reaches its ten year anniversary, the organization is reassessing its current and future impact on the surrounding region. This paper will discuss the recent efforts to create archaeology content with measurable outcomes using education non-profit best practices to reach...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William White.

What gets measured gets managed. Public archaeology projects seek to involve local stakeholders in the conservation of their own history. Universities, not-for-profit organizations, and volunteers have taken leadership roles in public archaeology. Landowners and public institutions are tasked with the management of heritage resources. This is primarily done through cultural resource management and historic preservation laws; but, in the case of public archaeology, it also frequently involves...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachael Kangas.

Public archaeology in southwest Florida comes with unique challenges and opportunities. The dominant population for the Florida Public Archaeology Network’s Southwest Region consists largely of retired wealthy white citizens, many of who call southwest Florida home year-round, others who flock here during the winter months. While this group dominates the region in terms of population, there is a significant part of the public who identify with one or more minority groups. FPAN Southwest is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Clark.

The greatest potential in supporting a person’s learning process is using evaluation and assessment.  There has been a lack of research into whether Public Archeology programming is currently effective at achieving the desired benefits. As increasing enrollments in educational programs continues, assessment tools to evaluate education policy and practice will become more vital to ensure quality education. Evaluation can answer questions about who is coming to programs (looters) and what they are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandi Carrier. Dave Ball.

BOEM’s historic preservation program is based in stewardship, science-informed decisions, and scientific integrity. To achieve these values, we utilize best practices of inclusiveness in our community science programs. By actively seeking varied ways of knowing, e.g, traditional knowledge and landscape approaches, we allow for concurrent historic contexts to be defined and understood at various scales. Considering our jurisdiction covers 1.76 billion acres of submerged federal lands, these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only A. Gwynn Henderson. M. Jay Stottman. Linda S. Levstik.

Archaeologists have long been interested in developing and providing archaeology-based educational resources to teachers for use in the classroom, but they have spent significantly less attention on evaluating resource effectiveness. Evaluation was a key component in the development of "Investigating a Shotgun House,"one ofthe newest case studies in the Project Archaeology: Investigating Shelter curriculum. This paper will discuss a pilot program conducted during the development of...