This past weekend the State Museum of PA’s Section of
Archaeology participated in a Girl Scout STEM career day, hosted by Community
165 at the Newport High School in Perry County. For our readers who have not
kept pace with the ever-growing litany of acronyms out there, STEM stands for
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.
For decades, women in the workforce have been
under-represented in STEM professions, and this event was designed to expose
the scouts to vocational avenues they may not have considered, been aware of,
or unfortunately, may have been passively or actively discouraged from
pursuing. In the words of the event coordinator, Marla Steele, “This program is
to plant the seeds of possibility”.
As a sub-discipline of anthropology (the study of humans),
archaeology is generally considered a social or “soft” science. Prerequisites
of traditional science classes such as physics and organic chemistry are
normally absent from college curricula when obtaining a degree in archaeology.
Additionally, research questions archaeologists seek to answer are often social
in nature. However, it is the system (empirical method) by which they attempt
to answer those questions that aligns the field with what is popularly thought
of as science.
Archaeologists rely
heavily upon a variety of science specialists for data collection. Geomorphologists, zoologists, botanists, and not least of
which carbon 14 dating laboratories, all contribute towards the goal of creating a broader
understanding of past human behavior. Anthropology, in this multi-disciplinary
sense, stands at the nexus between the humanities and the sciences, combining
the theories of the former with the methods of the latter.
As the fifty girl scouts broke into smaller groups and made
their way from station to station learning about civil engineering,
micro-biology and environmental science, our display emphasized what
archaeology is and is not (sorry, no dinosaurs), why it is important, and how
it is conducted. Throughout the afternoon, several of the girl scouts posed
thoughtful questions and shared anecdotes about artifact discoveries they’ve
made in their own backyards and nearby fields.
Thanks again to Ms. Steele for inviting us to participate in
this worthwhile program!
The Section
of Archaeology was recently notified that our blog has been chosen as one of
the top 50 Anthropology blogs in the world by Feedspot. We are
actually number twenty-four on the list along with blogs by ScienceDaily,
Huffington Post and the American Anthropological Association. Criteria for
selection included the “Quality and consistency of posts” along with popularity
on Google, Facebook and other social media.
Our blog is
an opportunity to connect with the public and provide thought provoking,
educational posts. We’ve covered the archaeological heritage of Pennsylvania
for all 67 counties, compiled two alphabetical lists of archaeological topics and
shared our research discoveries and programs with our blog followers for the
past eight years and almost 350 posts.
As archaeologists and museum curators
our goal is to provide reliable, educational content in a format which appeals
to a broad audience. We would like to think that this award is one measure of
our success. So if you’ll keep reading, we’ll keep blogging! Thanks to Feedspot for the recognition and
most importantly thank you, our faithful followers and readers!
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