Classroom Modules
Enjoy our most popular classroom materials and educational content, curated in one spot.
Learn About Archaeology
Archaeology is the scientific study of the material remains of past human societies. It is one of four subfields of anthropology, or the study of humans. The other three are physical anthropology (the study of human evolution and biological diversity), cultural anthropology (the study of living cultures), and linguistics (the study of human language).
A learning module focused on Crow Canyon’s current research, centered on the Haynie site, a multi-component community center.
Enjoy our most popular videos from many years of Crow Canyon people and projects, curated in one spot.
Castle Rock Pueblo is the site of an ancient village located in the heart of the Mesa Verde region. From 1990 through 1994, the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center studied the history of this fascinating place. The story of Castle Rock Pueblo is drawn from many sources: the results of archaeological study, insights shared by Native Americans, and a variety of historic records and photographs.
An investigation into why the ancient Pueblo people (Anasazi) chose to live on the edge of this steep canyon. Learn the the who, what, where, and when of Woods Canyon Pueblo.
At Crow Canyon, we teach young people how to interpret the past—because they’ll shape our future. As a local outreach initiative, we offer History Trunks for loan—at no cost—to teachers in southwestern Colorado. Designed for elementary school students, the trunks focus on local history and culture. Five trunks are available.
The Archaeology of Cactus Ruin: A Paper Excavation is a lesson designed to teach students how archaeologists use sampling strategies to learn about past cultures. Cactus Ruin is modeled after the ancestral Puebloan site, Roy’s Ruin. The site was excavated in 1988 by Crow Canyon Archaeological Center as part of the Sand Canyon Archaeological Project Site Testing Program.
People have lived in the Mesa Verde region of the American Southwest for thousands of years. For the vast majority of that time, the inhabitants were American Indians—hunters, foragers, and farmers who thrived in the canyon-and-mesa country of what today encompasses portions of southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico. Only in the last approximately 250 years have other people—mostly Europeans and Americans of European descent—moved into the area.
Pueblo Indian History for Kids teaches students about a part of history that is overlooked in too many textbooks: the thousands of years that indigenous peoples thrived in North America before Europeans even knew that the continent existed.
The Shared Historical Landscapes Project brought together Crow Canyon, local school districts, and several government and not-for-profit community organizations to develop a plan for a K–12 educational collaboration.
TEACHER CREATED CLASSROOM MODULES
Created by teachers attending NEH Summer Institute for K-12 Educators
This unit will address students’ self-identity and place in history while utilizing the Ancestral Pueblo as a case study. In a nutshell, students will learn to identify how our environments impact identity formation – and vice versa.
This unit looks at different perspectives of farming, various environments, technologies, art
This unit looks at different perspectives of studying the past and the importance of understanding perspective and bias.
This unit introduces students to the Ancestral Puebloan people and their relationship with the Mesa Verde natural environment.
This unit introduces students to the Ancestral Puebloan people and their relationship with the Mesa Verde natural environment.
This lesson will explore migration of the Ancestral Pueblo people of the Southwest, rock art, life and technology in Chaco Canyon, Identity and pottery.