"We’re Engaging Youth, but are we Meeting the Needs of the Park?": Reexamining the first Four Years of the Urban Archaeology Corps

Summary

Four years ago the Urban Archaeology Corps was created through a partnership between the National Park Service Archaeology Program, National Capital Parks-East, and Groundwork Anacostia/DC. This summer youth employment program broke from NPS tradition, by employing youth to conduct archaeological excavations, historical research, and other cultural resources work, while emphasizing and valuing "youth voice" in the development of the program’s structure and the products the participants create. The UAC was also designed to help meet the compliance, interpretative, and research needs of the host park. This paper will explore the efforts of the UAC to meet the needs of their host park, while keeping true to the value of youth voice. The authors, one a NPS archaeologist at the host park, and the other, the UAC project archaeologist employed by the partnering organization, will discuss the successes, failures, and challenges they have experienced while developing and reshaping this program.  

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• National Park Service Archeology Outreach and Education at the Centennial   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 871