The ARC Smart program is a partnership between the Los Angeles Unified School District and the University of Southern California Archaeology Research Center. It aims to teach 6th grade students about ancient civilizations through weekly classroom sessions led by USC students and professors. Students learn about Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and other societies through hands-on activities like simulated excavations and analyzing real artifacts. Pre and post-assessments show that students' knowledge grows significantly over the course of the program. The program has reached over 3,000 students in its first four years.

1. ARC You Smarter Than A
Sixth Grader?
Promoting Archaeology through Educational
Outreach
Parin Patel, Kalena Giessler, Sarah Butler, Paul Salay, Lynn
Swartz Dodd

2. Dharma Master Cheng Yen once said: “Every single day is like a blank page of our life. Every
person we meet, every event we participate in is a lively essay.” This is our story about the ARC
Smart Community Service Initiative.
ARC Smart began as a partnership between Los Angeles Unified School
District’s (LAUSD) Art and Artifact Collection and University of Southern California’s
Archaeology Research Center. The program targets sixth grade students within the
LAUSD because California’s social studies curriculum focuses on the ancient world in
the sixth grade, and the program serves as a supplement to lessons taught in the
classroom. The students participate in five weekly classroom meetings led by professors,
curators, and undergraduate student volunteers from USC with experience in conducting
archaeological research. The classroom is broken up into four different groups, each
focusing on a different region: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greco-Roman society, and
Gandhara. Each week, the sixth grade students travel through each of these ancient
civilizations and learn about their culture, geographic location, and notable sites. ARC
Smart places an emphasis on active learning, and the goal is to engage the students to
think critically and actively participate. Skills such as recognition of patterns in history,
critical thinking, and social development, are not only important for the students’ futures,
but also prepare them for the California Standards Exam.
Students “develop higher levels of critical thinking by considering why
civilizations developed where and when they did, why they became dominant, and why
they declined.” These questions encourage a combination of creative and critical thinking
along with content. Because the program focuses on critical thinking and deductive
reasoning, is also serves to benefit the students regardless of what field they choose to
study in the future.

3. The first session, Garbology, acts as an introduction to the discipline of
archaeology by allowing students to participate in a simulated archaeological excavation.
Students are split into four different groups that each have a trash bin filled with packing
peanuts and modern artifacts that represent four types of people, such as a USC male
student, a family, and others. Students excavate the trash can in stratigraphic layers and
write down the artifacts they find. This allows them to understand the processes of
accurate record-keeping, which is critical in field excavations. Throughout the simulated
excavation, students must use deductive reasoning to infer who would most likely have
owned the artifacts and provide supporting evidence to their claims. At the end of the
session, each group presents their artifacts and theory to the rest of the class, who then
decides if they support or disagree with their hypothesis. This allows them to experience
the important process of presenting data and responding to critical analyses from their
peers, similar to what researchers experience in academia. The Garbology session
provides students with a unique opportunity to experience many of the responsibilities
that archaeologists have, including careful excavation of artifacts and analyzing data, in
presenting accurate depictions of ancient cultures.
In the second session, USC volunteers use Google Earth to teach students about
geography, help them learn where ancient cultures were located around the world, and
familiarize them with the cultures they learn about during the rest of the sessions.
Students digitally travel from USC to the civilizations of interest through preset tours
created by USC students. During these tours, students interact with Google Earth by
exploring 3D models of the Ziggurat, the Sphinx, the Coliseum, and other famous sites
from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Gandhara alongside the environmental

4. features within each location. This helps students envision how societies interacted with
and survived in their respective environments. For example, students observe the distance
between the Nile River in Egypt and the location of the pyramids to understand how the
Nile provided sustainable resources to Egyptian society. USC volunteers also compare
the 3D models to landmarks that students are familiar with, for example the Roman
Coliseum and the Los Angeles Coliseum, to help them visualize how these structures
may have been used in the past and as indicators of how past civilizations influence
modern ones.
During the next session, USC students bring real artifacts from each civilization
to the classroom. These artifacts include cuneiform tablets and styli from Mesopotamia,
scarab beetles and amulets from Egypt, coins from Greece and Rome, and ancient stupā
panels from Gandhara. In four stations, students are allowed to touch and examine
ancient objects using protective gloves, magnifying glasses, and flashlights while USC
volunteers explain how ancient people used the artifacts within the context of their daily
lives. This hands-on opportunity provides students with a unique experience that help
students retain a high level of information about each culture and artifact. Students
connect these ancient artifacts to objects they use on a daily basis, giving them a better
understanding of these civilizations and how they relate to modern cultures. Students also
learn about conservation techniques, giving them another opportunity to experience an
important component of archaeology.
The fourth session builds upon the information students have learned in the
artifact handling session. In this session, USC volunteers teach students how to use
InscriptiFact, an online museum database pioneered by USC and Hewlett-Packard.

5. InscriptiFact is a computer program that allows users to view high resolution, multi-light
RTI images of artifacts, with which they can closely examine the objects. By moving the
mouse, students can simulate directing light at objects from different angles, which can
help them observe the artifacts in high detail. This technology allows scholars and
students alike to pick out details that are otherwise difficult to see, such as the
fingerprints of original artisans that can be found on some cuneiform tablets. The
InscriptiFact session gives students an insight into how modern technology can be used in
archaeological analysis and shows them how technological advances have provided
archaeologists with reliable and credible data in researching material culture.
The final session is a wrap-up of everything that the students have learned
throughout the program. In a Jeopardy-style question-and-answer session, students show
the extent of the information they retained from the ARC Smart program. USC volunteers
give the students statements that range in difficulty and the teams must provide the
correct answer. These statements are based on actual questions in the Grade Six
California Content Standards Exam, allowing them to correlate their ARC Smart
experience with the exam they are required to take in order to graduate. Some example
questions from the Jeopardy session can be seen on the slide.
The final session also serves as a question-and-answer session between the students and
ARC Smart volunteers, in which the USC students answer any questions the 6th graders
have about college life, giving the students an opportunity to speak candidly with actual
undergraduates and receive firsthand information about the college experience.
To help students’ retention between each session and reinforce what they learn,
the students fill out a worksheet during each session and also complete archaeology-

6. oriented homework exercises, such as a word search or crossword puzzle. These
worksheets are collected and graded by USC students to assure that the students
comprehend the information from the ARC Smart sessions.
In addition to these five sessions, the students are also given pre-assessment and
post- assessment tests to measure their growth over the course of the program. The
assessments are compiled from actual questions used in previous California Content
Standards exams so that the questions remain relevant to the ARC Smart program and
complement the course curriculum outlined by the LAUSD. The data from the pre-
assessment and post-assessment comparisons have continued to be positive since the
metrics were collected for the program. Most students enter the program with little to no
knowledge of ancient civilizations and within a five-week period, their knowledge base
grows rapidly. The following results were taken from our Spring 2012a session that
partnered with two separate classes taught by the same teacher at 32nd
Street School in
Los Angeles, California. The results compare pre-assessment test scores with post-
assessment scores and can be seen graphically here:
The results show that there was significant growth in learning and clear retention.
The gender analysis, however, shows that females are succeeding best in this learning
environment, while males, who may begin and end the program with a lower average
score, have a higher rate of growth.
The University of Southern California is committed to serving the surrounding
community. The ARC Smart initiative provides a medium for Anthropology, Classics,
History, and Interdisciplinary Archaeology majors to make positive contributions to the

7. USC community and surrounding neighborhoods. The program is also mutually
beneficial to the University of Southern California participants. The volunteers feel that
the ARC Smart program is providing a tangible benefit to the students that the program
serves. The students also provide insight into the truth about college life, showcase their
personal interests in archaeology, and become positive role models for the students. The
supervisors, student volunteers, and elementary school teachers agree that ARC Smart
provides an incredible benefit to the students involved in the program, as well as
themselves.
David Owens a 6th Grade Teacher at 96th Street Elementary School said:
“History is always… a difficult kind of subject to cover because the kids always
feel like ‘How does this relate to me?’… It lets the kids know that this is real.
This is not something that’s in a book. It was really an inspiration. It’s kind of like
helping me to bring the story to life.”
Since the inception of the program, the ARC Smart initiative has reached over
3000 students in four years. The ARC Smart initiative has grown from an informal set of
calls between motivated 6th grade teachers and USC professors to a formal program with
a standards-based curriculum and assessment rubrics designed to measure efficacy. It
provides a connection between USC and the neighboring community and serves as an
excellent supplementary component to LAUSD's 6th
grade curriculum. In today's
budgetary environment where teaching staff are often unsure about their tenure and

8. traveling expenses for field trips is a dream of the past, USC’s ARC Smart volunteers
offer these students fun and engaging in-classroom field trips through a truly hands-on
experience that the barriers of budgetary constraints and museum display cases cannot
hold back. Together, we can help show the next generation that human history and our
enduring legacy is vital to understanding how we have evolved over time and what the
future holds for us, one classroom at a time.