In August 2006, I embarked on a five-month Fulbright teacher exchange with my family to Newark, Ohio.
Stonehenge, Wiltshire © English Heritage
My exchange teacher, Mary Borgia, is a keen archaeologist, and was very excited about exchanging with someone who lived so near Stonehenge. I soon discovered that Newark has its own treasure in the 2,000-year-old Newark Earthworks.
The Earthworks are a Native American site of deep significance. It became clear that the students at my school back home in Salisbury and the students at my exchange school in the US could do a comparative study of the two sites. This became a unique feature of our exchange.
View from the school roof: Miller Elementary in Ohio, creating ‘Cardboard Stonehenge’ © Ray Picton 2006
Engaging a professional
Before I departed for the US, our school had a fantastic opportunity to learn about the Newark Earthworks. Professor Dick Shiels from Ohio State University happened to be in England on a lecture tour. Professor Shiels is an expert on the Newark Earthworks and agreed to give a talk to my key stage 2 students. This was a great launch for our planned programme of comparative studies. He also left many materials for us to use on the project.
Making Stonehenge
In Ohio, all the grade 4 students (9 to 10 year olds) at my exchange school, Miller Elementary, visited the Earthworks. They then compared and contrasted the Earthworks with Stonehenge. For one of the projects, the students made a model of Stonehenge from a material of their choice. They were incredibly creative – Stonehenge was made from stones, bottles, card, foam, Modroc, straws and there was even one model made out of crackers!
The students didn’t want to stop there. They were keen to build a version of Stonehenge that was as big as possible on the school grounds. We first built a model of Stonehenge using concrete blocks donated by a parent. This was sited in the front garden of the school.
Then we were given seven-foot pieces of cardboard and lots of estate agent boards to build a to-scale Stonehenge at the front of the school. So one day, all 75 students, teachers and many parents together built, ‘Cardboard Stonehenge’.
We took photos from the roof of the school to show the size of the project. Naturally the structure could not be permanent for health and safety reasons; nevertheless, the students really got a sense of the size and the sheer difficulty of building such a structure.
Finally, the students presented their learning at an assembly, which my headteacher from Salisbury attended, having had a visit to the exchange school funded by the British Council.
Students from Miller Elementary in Ohio assembling ‘Cardboard Stonehenge’ © Ray Picton 2006
What the counterpart were doing
Back in England, the key stage 2 students were busy too. They had visited Stonehenge and had also embarked on a comparative study of the two sites. The students focused on the importance of the moonrise and sunrise to both sites. They also made models of the Newark Earthworks. This proved an important talking point in the pen-pal exchanges we established between students in the two schools.
A filming project
On my return to Salisbury, I wanted to make the links between the two sites more permanent. I especially wanted to embed the comparative study of the two sites into the curriculum at both schools.
During one of the field trips to the Earthworks, a film crew from Ohio State University made a DVD of the trip. I used this DVD to help the students at Greentrees learn more about the Earthworks. This got me thinking that it would be great to make a similar DVD for the students of Miller Elementary.
With the support of English Heritage our students at Greentrees made a DVD (in early 2008). They were incredibly excited by this opportunity. This DVD is now used in Newark's schools to help students draw comparisons between the two sites.
In May 2008, I presented the DVD at Newark Earthworks Day in Newark, Ohio. The day involved leading academics, representatives of Native American societies and educationalists sharing lectures and presentations about the Earthworks and other ancient sites of significance. The trip was funded by Ohio State University and the Ohio Historical Society. It was an amazing opportunity to present alongside eminent archaeologists.
The main purpose of the presentation was to show how educational links between schools in different countries can lead to exciting learning opportunities. I wanted to show that by getting young people involved in learning about history and archaeology across continents, they can explore connections that just wouldn’t be possible on a traditional field trip. Making global connections means students explore the interconnectivity of our world on a much deeper level.
