Dig Site teaching notes

About these lessons

Three lessons of about forty-five minutes each, for ages nine to fifteen, with a fourth for students who are ready to read code. Students dig a square of an invented site by hand, record each find where it lies, sieve the buckets, read the layers in the trench wall and work out their order and their dates, write a report in which every claim points at its evidence, and finally build a site of their own, its history in sentences, its things placed by hand, so that a partner can dig it. Each lesson has one idea, ends with something the student made and can explain, and only asks for what the lesson before it taught.

Dig Site is a dig, not a hunt for valuables. Nothing in it has a money value, the five ready-made sites are invented, there are no human remains in it and never will be, and the ready-made sites are not sacred places or any living people's sites. The app says, in its own words, that digging an archaeological site on public land in the United States without a permit is against the law, and that a find on your own land should be reported, not kept. If a student asks why, that is lesson 1's question, and the honest answer is the unstratified find in their own tray.

How to read this guide

1. Say what to tell the class, in a sentence or two. Use your own words if you like.
2. Students do the steps, in order. Read them out or put them on the board.
3. On their screens what you should see when you walk round. If a screen does not look like this, that student needs you.
4. If it goes wrong what usually goes wrong at this step, and what to say.
5. Ask the question that tells you whether it landed. Let them show you on the screen.

• Every student needs Dig Site open in a browser, with a mouse or a trackpad. It runs on a Chromebook. Nothing is installed.
• The tabs on the right are Dig, Finds, Layers, Report and Build. The strip under the trench shows the day, the squares open and the finds recorded, and holds Look straight down, Photograph and the sound switch. Drag the grass to turn the view, hold the space bar and drag to slide it, and use the wheel to zoom. The plan at the top right is the site grid: click a square to go to it or to open it.
• A drag on an open square's floor digs with the tool in hand. A drag on the grass turns the view, the space bar held with a drag slides it, the mouse wheel zooms; on a touch screen two fingers slide and zoom. A click on the grass opens a square there, and the plan at the top right does the same. The number keys 1 to 4 pick the tools.
• Work is kept as the student goes when they are signed in. Without an account nothing is saved; lesson 1 can be done that way, but lessons 2 and 3 build on lesson 1's dig.
• Try lesson 1 yourself first. It takes ten minutes, and you will meet the unstratified find before your students do.

The lessons

Before the first lesson

• Open Dig Site yourself. It starts on the Farmhouse Yard with square D3 open and a nail half showing in the soil. Scrape with the trowel, switch to the brush when you are near the nail, click it, press Record, then Lift. Then dig on until the bucket is full and press Sieve. That is lesson 1 in miniature.
• Decide whether students will sign in. Lessons 2 and 3 need the dig from lesson 1, so they need accounts, which are free. For a single period, no account is needed.
• If you want everyone on the same site with the same season, you do not need to do anything: the Farmhouse Yard is the default, and the season is ten days. Four more sites come ready-made under New site: a Roman villa's corner, a desert workshop, a rainforest platform and the yard of a medieval castle. The Build tab's season chips can make the days unlimited, turn breaking off for a younger class, or take the sieve away.
• Sound: the scrape and the click on something hard are part of the teaching, but a room of thirty will want it off. It is in the strip under the trench, and each student's choice is remembered on their machine.

Lesson 1: The record

One idea: digging destroys the site as it goes, so the record of where a thing lay is the only thing that lasts. By the end every student has a tray with recorded finds in it and, if the lesson goes as it usually does, one find that is unstratified, which is the thing they will remember.

Lesson 1: Dig first (0 to 10)

1. Say This is a dig site. The ground is in layers, and things people dropped a long time ago are in them. You take the soil off a little at a time. Try the tools: the trowel scrapes, the brush sweeps. Listen for the click, which means the tool hit something hard.
2. Students do Drag the trowel across the open square a few times. Switch to Brush and sweep near the thing that is showing. Drag on the grass to turn the view and look at it from the side. Press Look straight down and then turn the view back.
3. On their screens A green site with one dark open square. The floor of the square lightens where the trowel has scraped it; a nail or a sherd shows in the soil with a small ring of lighter soil round it where the brush went. The strip reads Day 1 of 10, morning. The Dig tab shows the four tools and light, normal, firm for how hard to press.
4. If it goes wrong The view turns instead of digging: they are dragging on the grass, not on the floor of the open square. Point at the brown floor; the cursor becomes a crosshair there. The square is already very deep: they held firm with the mattock; that is fine, it is only soil, but tell them the mattock stops below the turf on purpose.
5. Ask What does the click mean, and what should you do when you hear it? (Switch to the brush. The trowel scratches what it touches.)

Lesson 1: Record, then lift (10 to 25)

1. Say Before anything comes out of the ground, it gets recorded: a number, which layer it was in, and exactly where it lay. Then you lift it. Do it in that order. Once you have lifted it, nobody can ever know where it was except from your record.
2. Students do Brush round the find until the green bar in its pop is nearly full. Click the find. Press Record, read the toast, then press Lift. Open the Finds tab and look at the tray. Dig on until a second find shows, and this time press Lift anyway before recording it. Undo will not bring it back: a find lifted with no record stays unstratified, the way it would on a real dig.
3. On their screens After Record, a small numbered tag sits in the soil beside the find and the strip's count goes up. After Lift, the find is gone from the trench and sits in the tray with its number, its square, its context and its depth in centimeters. The find lifted without a record shows a gray number and the words unstratified: where it lay was not recorded.
4. If it goes wrong Lift is not offered, only Lift anyway: the find is not free enough. Brush round it more, especially its sides. They pressed Lift anyway on a bottle and it broke: that is the app being honest; the pieces are in the tray with a fresh break, and the next one they will brush. The pop does not open: hover the find itself, or click it; a nail is thin, so near it is enough.
5. Ask Look at your unstratified find. What can you still find out about it? (What it is.) What can you never find out? (Which layer it was in, so when it got there.) Why does that matter?

Lesson 1: The bucket and the sieve (25 to 40)

1. Say Everything you scrape goes in a bucket. The bucket can be sieved, which catches the small things a trowel never sees, or tipped on the spoil heap, which loses them for good. It also knows which layer the soil came from, so if you dig through two layers at once, the bucket is mixed.
2. Students do Dig until a bucket is full; it appears on the Dig tab under Buckets. Press Sieve. Open the Finds tab and find what the sieve caught. Keep digging and describe the new layer when the record sheet appears: pick a color, a texture and how hard it is.
3. On their screens A full bucket row with a Sieve button and a smaller Spoil. After sieving, a toast says how many small finds were in it, and the tray gains a bead or a button marked from the sieve. A bucket that spans two layers is outlined red and says mixed. When a new layer shows, a record sheet opens on the Dig tab with chips for color, texture and hardness.
4. If it goes wrong No bucket ever fills: they are brushing, which moves very little soil. Switch to the trowel. Every bucket is mixed: they are digging in one spot straight down; say to take the whole square down evenly, one layer at a time, and watch the floor change color.
5. Ask Your bucket said mixed. What did you do? (Dug through two layers at once.) What does a find from that bucket lose? (Which of the two layers it came from.) What did the sieve find that you would have thrown away?

Lesson 1: Close (40 to 45)

1. Say Open the Finds tab and read your field log. Everything you did is there, by day. On a real dig the log is what the next archaeologist reads, and the unstratified find is the one they cannot use.
2. Students do Read the log. Count recorded finds and unstratified ones in the strip. If they are signed in, press Ctrl+S or let the save happen.
3. Ask If you could do the first ten minutes again, what would you do differently, and why?

Lesson 2: The layers

One idea: lower is older, unless something cut through, and a layer is no older than the newest thing recorded in it. By the end every student has stated the order of their layers, checked it, and watched one layer earn a date from a find they named. This lesson needs lesson 1's dig, or fifteen minutes of digging first.

Lesson 2: Read the wall (0 to 12)

1. Say Look at the side of your trench. The layers show as bands. The app draws one wall for you, but only as deep as you dug: it never guesses what you have not seen.
2. Students do Open the Layers tab. Press north, east, south, west and watch the section change. Turn the view in the trench to look at the same wall for real. Find the layer numbers on the drawing and in the list above it.
3. On their screens Under Layers, in the order you met them, each context with a soil swatch, where it was seen and how many recorded finds it has. Under The section, bands of soil color with the context numbers on them and the depth reached at the bottom. A square dug through two layers shows two bands; one dug through the lawn only shows one.
4. If it goes wrong The section shows one thin band: they have not dug past the first layer. Ten minutes with the trowel fixes it. The numbers on the drawing are not in age order: that is right; contexts are numbered in the order the student met them, not by age, which is how a real site does it.
5. Ask Which band is on top, and which did you reach last? Which one is older, and how do you know without anyone telling you?

Lesson 2: State the order (12 to 25)

1. Say Now say it, in lines: this context is above that one. If a layer was dug into, a pit or a post hole, its fill cuts the layers around it, and a fill is always younger than what it cuts. Then press Check my order. The app only checks what you could have seen.
2. Students do Under The order of layers, press Add a line. Pick the context on top, then the one under it; change is above to cuts for a pit fill. Add a line for every pair they saw. Press Check my order and read the words on each line.
3. On their screens Each line as chips: Context 1 is above context 2. After the check, a green right, a red wrong, or you did not see this for a pair their trench never showed together. A dig that reached a pit shows a fill that cuts the layer beside it.
4. If it goes wrong Every line says you did not see this: they are pairing contexts from different squares that never touched. Say to pair layers that lie one on the other in the same square. A line is wrong and they are sure: have them look at the section again; the drawing is the evidence.
5. Ask Why is the pit's fill younger than the layer it sits in, even though it is lower? (Someone dug down through that layer to make the pit, and the fill went in after.)

Lesson 2: Name a find, date a layer (25 to 40)

1. Say A layer is no older than the newest thing recorded in it. To know how new a thing is, you have to know what it is. Clean a find, look closer, and say which type it is. A wrong name gives a wrong date, and the app will not warn you: that is your job.
2. Students do Open Finds, click a recorded find, press Clean it, read Look closer, and pick a type from Is it one of these?. Do it for three finds. Go back to Layers and read No older than.
3. On their screens After cleaning, a line beginning Look closer: with the detail that tells types apart, and It looks: with the words a rule could use. After naming, the type's dates: made from 1890 on, made in 1880, or no date on its own for a bone. On Layers, a line like Context 2: no older than 1903, because find 4 (bottle, machine made) was made from 1903.
4. If it goes wrong No layer gets a date: the named finds are bones or shells, which have no date of their own, or the finds are unstratified. Name a nail or a bottle that was recorded. A layer on top has an earlier date than the one under it, once the order of layers says which lies on which. That is not a mistake: what is on top went down later, so the app carries the later date up and says why, for example Context 1: no older than 1892 either, because it lies over context 2.
5. Ask Which find is holding up your layer's date? If you had named it the other way, what would the date be? How sure are you of the name, and what did you look at?

Lesson 2: Close (40 to 45)

1. Say Look at the timeline under the dates. That is your trench as history: each layer with the earliest year it could have formed.
2. Students do Read the timeline. Add a note to one record sheet on the Dig tab about what that layer was like.
3. Ask If a find from the lawn fell down a rabbit hole into the layer below, what would your dates say, and how would you ever know?

Lesson 3: The report, and a site of your own

One idea: a claim needs evidence, and a site is a history that runs forward while a dig reads it backward. By the end every student has handed in a report with three claims and the evidence behind each, read the site's own story beside it, and built a site in sentences that a partner can dig. This lesson needs lesson 2's dig.

Lesson 3: Claims and evidence (0 to 15)

1. Say Three questions: what was here, when, and what happened to it. Answer each in a sentence, then point at the evidence: a find, a layer, a date. A claim with nothing behind it is a guess, and the report will not let it stand on its own.
2. Students do Open Report. Write a sentence under each question. Press + beside because and pick the finds, contexts and dates that back it. Do all three.
3. On their screens Three boxes with a sentence each, and under each a row of chips: context 2, find 4 (bottle, machine made), context 2 no older than 1903. A claim with no chips still says add evidence.
4. If it goes wrong The evidence list is empty: nothing was recorded, or nothing named. Ten minutes on the Finds tab fixes it. Students write the site's story from memory instead of from their trench: ask which find on the screen says so.
5. Ask Read me your when claim and its evidence. What would it take to change your mind?

Lesson 3: Hand it in (15 to 22)

1. Say Hand it in. Then the site tells its own story beside yours, oldest first, and shows which names you got wrong. Nobody gets all of it; the question is what your trench could and could not have told you.
2. Students do Press Hand it in. Read What was here and Names to look at again. Press Print the sheet if there is a printer. Take it back lets them revise, but once they have read the site's story the next hand-in says, in red, that it was taken back, and so does the sheet.
3. On their screens Under What was here, the site's history in plain words, each line marked with the student's context number or not reached. Under Names to look at again, each wrong name with what the find really is, or Every find you named, you named right.
4. If it goes wrong Hand it in will not go: every claim needs at least one piece of evidence beside it; press + under the claim and pick a find, a layer or a date. Half the story says not reached: their trench did not go deep enough to meet those layers, which is honest and worth saying out loud: a dig only knows what it reached.
5. Ask Which line of the site's story could your trench never have found out? What would you dig next, and where?

Lesson 3: Build a site for a partner (22 to 42)

1. Say A site is a history: first the ground nobody made, then a layer builds up, someone digs a pit, a fire, a lawn grows over it all. Tell one in sentences, oldest first, and the app makes the ground from it. Pick where it is, and place the things you want found by hand. Your partner will dig it, so think about what you want them to find, and where.
2. Students do Open Build. Under Where it is, pick meadow, desert, rainforest or castle. Under Things to find, press Add a thing, pick a coin, drag its dot to a square, and set how deep with the slider while you watch the column beside it. The list under the plan says where each thing lies. Then press change the layers to read the history as sentences, oldest first. Click a blue word to change it. Press What happened next? and add a pit with something in it. When it reads right, leave Seal it checked, press Make this site, save, and trade with a partner. The partner's Build tab says only that the site is sealed; the layers show after the report is handed in. The seal can be broken, and if it is, the field log and the report both say so.
3. On their screens Three chips for where it is, then the site from above with a numbered dot for each placed thing, a list under it (1 penny, 1880 B7, 90 cm down), the column of layers at the chosen spot with the thing's depth marked, a slider, and a line like It lies in the old yard (1845 to 1890). Under change the layers, sentences with blue words: the old yard: a layer brown loam, 22 cm thick, everywhere, 1845 to 1890, the finds as chips (36 cut nail near D3). A click on a blue word opens one small menu.
4. If it goes wrong On a ready-made site, Build says Shut until your report is in, because it shows every layer and find: hand in first, which this lesson already does. Open it now works too, and the report says the layers were looked at. Make this site did nothing and a red line appeared: a sentence does not read, usually a pit with no square or a layer with no thickness; the line number says which. A thing placed deeper than the layers go: the column says it is in the ground nobody made, and no season will reach it; that is a fair trick to play once, and a mean one twice. The dig they had is gone: making the site ends it, and the app said so before they pressed it.
5. Ask You put a coin from 1974 in the bottom layer. What will your partner's dates say, and what will they think happened? Was that fair?

Lesson 3: Close (42 to 45)

1. Say Your site runs forward in time. The person who digs it reads it backward. If you want them to find something out, you have to leave the evidence where they will reach it.
2. Ask What did you bury that your partner can never find, and why not? (Too deep for the season, or in a square they will not open, or in a layer with nothing to date it.)

Lesson 4: In code (optional)

One idea: sentences, blocks and code are three ways to write the same decision. For students who have done lessons 1 to 3 and are ready to read a program. Each part stands on its own; pick the ones your class is ready for.

Lesson 4: The dating rule as code (0 to 15)

1. Say The rule that dated your layers is ten lines long. Here it is. It runs on your own finds. Change it and see what changes.
2. Students do On Layers, press Write the dating rule yourself. Read the starter. Press Run it and read the table. Delete the line that skips unstratified finds, run it again, and compare. Press Show my finds as data to see what the code sees.
3. On their screens A code box starting // Each context is no older than the newest thing recorded in it. and ending return dates;. After Run it, a table of Your rule beside The app, context by context, and the line Your rule and the app agree on every context. After the change, rows in red where they differ, and the line asking which one is right.
4. If it goes wrong A red error with a line number: a missing brace or semicolon; Back to the starter recovers. It ran for two seconds and never finished: a loop with no end; the box threw it away, which is the box doing its job.
5. Ask Your rule and the app disagree on context 3. Which one is right, and what does the find that caused it have to do with it?

Lesson 4: A dig plan and the sorting rules (15 to 40)

1. Say A plan for where to dig is a short program: open these squares, take this one down to natural, sieve everything. And the lab's rules can be written down too: when a find is glass and has a seam over the lip, call it a machine-made bottle. Both can be sentences, text or blocks.
2. Students do On Dig, press Write a dig plan, write open every 3rd square in row 2 and dig B2 down 20 cm, and run it. Press show as blocks and drag one more line in. On Finds, press Sort the tray by rules, add two rules as sentences, run them, and read which rule named each find.
3. On their screens The plan's report, one line per step: opened 4 of 4 (A2 D2 G2 J2), B2: down 20 cm or stopped at 12 cm, something is showing, dig by hand. With blocks, a Glassbox pane under the panel with the plan as blocks, and the text keeping up. The rules as sentences, and after Run the rules, Find 3: rule 1 says wire nail or no rule fits (it is still dirty, so only its material shows).
4. If it goes wrong The plan stopped early: something showed, and a program never digs blind through a find; that is the point. A rule names everything wrong: it is too plain (when glass) and sits above the careful one; order matters, the first rule that fits wins.
5. Ask Why did the plan stop? Why does the order of your rules matter? Show me the same rule as a sentence, as text and as a block.

Where to go next

• The Villa Corner is the second site: a corner of a Roman villa in Britain, with a wall, a hypocaust, an amphora under the roof fall and coins dated by their emperors, for a world history class. New site opens it.
• A site you build can be handed out as a starter project the way lessons already do: share it, and each student remixes their own copy and digs it fresh.
• Dinosaur Lab is the other half of a tie-in: a dinosaur built there and exported to Files can be buried here today as a thing of the student's own; bone by bone, as a bone bed, is coming.

More help

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