Day 18 - Slave Cemetery Archaeology Unit Work

Slave Cemetery Survey Site - Mount Vernon

Today was primarily a work day so I don't have a wide variety of photos or videos but it was a productive day.  For my Mount Vernon Life Guard Teacher Fellow project I am creating a lesson plan for middle school teachers which incorporates archaeology and the work here at Mount Vernon. My original plan was to create a day of lessons which introduce the fundamentals of archaeology and then create a lesson for the second day which allowed groups of students to explore one of five archaeology sites at Mount Vernon. Yesterday I was working on it for most of the day and it began to become more and more comprehensive.  

Slave Memorial at Mount Vernon

Today around noon I decided to focus the lesson plan on the Slavery Cemetery Survey currently happening at Mount Vernon as my focus.  A focus on this site will allow me to incorporate more of my experiences volunteering at the site and there is an abundant volume of research available from Joe Downer - the crew chief of the project. Mount Vernon has a variety of video resources available to incorporate in the lesson, including a drone flyover of the site last year.

After working most of the day on the project I needed a break and since I had been inside most of the day I decided to go a on a walk.  Since I am here at Mount Vernon I thought it would be appropriate to walk down to the slave cemetery site to connect with the geography that I had been reading and writing about all day.  

Slave Memorial at Mount Vernon