ARTIFACT BAG

An artifact bag is an activity used in the classroom for many specific reasons. An artifact bag consists of about three to four items in a bag, that all lead to a particular event, person or place due on a specific topic. An artifact is an object made by a human being or an item with historical meaning to the particular object. The purpose of this activity is for the students to learn about the American Revolution by examining the artifacts given that are from the American Revolution.

The students will be completing this activity in inquiry-based instruction. This is a method of teaching that combines the scientific method process and the development of critical thinking while learning. I will refresh the students’ knowledge about the scientific method and how it is used in this activity. I will question the students to see if they remember any of the steps of the scientific method. I will follow up with reviewing each step with details and pictures, so the students get the knowledge of each step in the inquiry method.

I will explain to the students that they will be placed in groups. Students will be given ten minutes to determine what each artifact means in each bag that will lead them to their conclusion of a significant person or event that happened in the American Revolution. The student’s will be filling out the chart provided to them. The chart consists of the students’ hypotheses, who, what, when, where, how, why and the conclusion made from each artifact.

I will close the lesson by having each group present their artifacts to their classmates. Each group will come up showing their artifacts and chart that they discovered during their research. I will conclude with a video about Paul Revere. This video will help the students learn more about what a significant person he was in the American Revolution. After presenting their artifact bag, the students will complete a reflection on today’s activity in their journals. The journal entry page will be given to the students. I will provide a rubric to put on the board to make sure each individual meets the criteria in their writings. 

The artifacts that were chosen to describe Paul Revere were a horse, USA sticker, and a light bulb. A horse was given as an artifact because it symbolizes the time in the American Revolution when Paul Revere was on his horse and yelled, “The British are coming!” A USA sticker to symbolize that Paul Revere was on the American side and that this had to do with the American Revolution. The third artifact was a light bulb. The light bulb relates to the lantern, which meant if he hung one lantern the British were coming by sea, two lanterns meant coming by land. This refers to the quote, “One if by land, and two if by Sea”. These three artifacts were used to conclude that my artifact bag was Paul Revere.

Artifact bag projects are very useful in teaching. I never created or heard of an artifact bag until I got the opportunity to participate in the activity in Dr. Smirnova’s class. In class, we got paired up and got an artifact bag. My partner and I made a hypothesis on the artifact bag before seeing the artifacts inside the bag. After making a predication we were eager to see what was inside. Determining the artifacts one by one and figuring it out was challenging. Some of the artifacts we knew but others we used the Internet to research more in depth. At the end, we had to make a conclusion on all the artifacts and our thoughts.Personally, I found this project very intriguing it was different than other projects. The artifact bag gave us different ways to use the inquiry method and critical thinking.