This month, SASA held a booth at the 2023 New Jersey Council for the Social Studies (NJCSS) conference. The title of this year’s conference was "Continuity & Change: Social Studies Education in our 21st Century Classrooms".
The NJCSS is a statewide association in New Jersey with 1,300 members devoted to social studies education and bringing together educators from all social studies disciplines, including history, economics, geography, psychology, and many more. Their members include educators from elementary to college levels and other professionals that share a commitment and passion for social studies. NJCSS members share the goal of working towards a better understanding of social studies and its importance. This aligns seamlessly with SASA’s mission, and so it was no surprise that our attendance at the conference was a great success!
Victoria and Xi, members of the archaeogaming team at SASA, met with attendees of the conference to help share and promote SASA’s mission with educators and like minded individuals. They met with several teachers who expressed a desire to introduce interactive modes of teaching into their classrooms and expressed interest in our Archeogaming Education Modules (AEM).
Archaeogaming is a new field of education that utilizes video game footage combined with tailored narration to provide an immersive and engaging learning experience for students. SASA’s Archeogaming Team has produced six modules that each focus on different concepts and societies from the ancient world. Our Archaeogaming Modules are single-lesson, all-in-one packages designed for 4th-6th grade curriculums and can be downloaded from SASA’s Archaeogaming Module Page free of charge!
Educators who spoke with Xi and Victoria were receptive towards video games as a method to introduce students to ancient studies as an educational subject and increase their engagement with ancient studies. Xi and Victoria demonstrated the video feature of our AEMs and how this works in the classrooms.
Teachers were particularly interested in the activities included within these modules. Each module includes a 10-minute video that explores a historical concept from the ancient world, a pre-prepared teacher’s packet that includes background information and context, quizzes, worksheets, games, translation exercises, and discussion questions! These modules cover topics such as ancient pottery, medieval Ireland, Vikings, medieval medicine, and many more, with more modules to come!
During the second session of the conference, teachers returned with their colleagues to share our AEMs with them and spread awareness for our program. This enthusiasm from teachers demonstrated an encouraging interest from educators encompassing a wide range of grade levels, and they were thrilled to hear that the modules are free to use and more will be coming out within the next year. This pointed to an exciting and promising future for SASA’s archaeogaming modules in classrooms!
Xi and Victoria also spoke to other professionals, including authors and scholars, who expressed interest in SASA’s more general mission. Overall, this was an exciting day for the SASA team to speak to like minded professionals who are just as excited about promoting ancient studies as we are!
