Less Writing, More Eating: Using Experiential Learning to Promote Engagement at a Small Liberal Arts College

Summary

This is an abstract from the "AI-Proof Learning: Food-Centered Experimental Archaeology in the Classroom" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Warren Wilson College is a small school in Asheville, North Carolina that integrates work, study, and community service through the lens of experiential learning. In this talk, I will discuss some of the pedagogical choices in my Archaeology of Food and Feasting course that promoted student engagement apart from traditional written assignments. More specifically, using the over 1,000-acre campus, farm, and garden, I show how the course explored social dynamics of food in the past through plant identification, foraging, zooarchaeology, ceramic analysis, and above all feasting. These hands-on experiences culminated in a “final exam” that encouraged students to obtain ingredients either from the Bounty and Soul food bank or from foraging and create a meal together as a class. As food and feasting are aspects of shared human experience both through time and space, the subject is ideal for building and sustaining a communal classroom centered on empathy and concern for an equitable and sustainable future.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• AI-Proof Learning: Food-Centered Experimental Archaeology in the Classroom   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37876.0