Pirate+Camp

**YEAR 3: The Montwellian Excavation Society’s Summer Institute for Marine Archaeologists**
//For the year that we studied about 1400 AD to about 1750 AD, we had a combination camp—underwater archaeology and pirates! This was right after the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, so all the kids were into pirates. By combining that interest with underwater archaeology, which often involves shipwrecks, we could learn a lot about the patterns of exploration that happened during the period we would be studying.//

I did research on pirates, sailors (because basically pirates are sailors gone bad), and underwater archaeology, which is quite a new field and is rapidly developing new techniques and tools.
 * Preparation:**

//Underwater, Nautical, or Marine Archaeology:// Thinkquest on Nautical Archaeology: http://library.thinkquest.org/27423/ God, Glory and Gold: Roots of Exploration: http://library.thinkquest.org/J002760/ Pirate Archeology: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/17/g68/archaeology.html Davey Jones Locker: Seafloor Mapping: http://dusk2.geo.orst.edu/djl/highseas.html Links: http://www.cindyvallar.com/piratelinks.html#Archaeology Shipwrecks: [|http://www.sonic.net/~press/#Shipwrecks] Queen Anne’s Revenge: http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/qar/ Bronze Age Shipwreck Excavation at Uluburun: http://ina.tamu.edu/ub_main.htm Uluburun Wreck: http://www.guidebodrum.com/uluburun_wreck.htm Underwater Archaeology Links http://www.cyberpursuits.com/archeo/uw-arch.asp Museums, Shipwrecks and Projects (links) http://www.pophaus.com/underwater/museums.html Underwater Archaeology: http://www.crystalinks.com/underwaterarch.html Guide to Underwater Archaeology Links on the Internet: http://www.pophaus.com/underwater/ Underwater Archaeology http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/archeosm/en/ Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M: http://nautarch.tamu.edu/ Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology: http://www.bodrum-museum.com/museum/departments.htm Black Sea Trade Project: http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/research/uw/blacksea/bs2000/ A Sea of Intrigue: Excavating Historic Underwater Vessels: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20040420tuesday.html?searchpv=learning_lessons Institute of Marine Archaeological Conservation: http://www.imacdigest.com/ Institute of Nautical Archaeology: http://ina.tamu.edu/ K-12 Marine Archaeology: http://www.mi.mun.ca/mi-net/archeolo/index.htm Odyssey Marine Exploration: http://www.shipwreck.net/ BBC’s Archaeology: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/archaeology/ Digging, Diving and Documenting: The Process for Nautical Archaeology (lesson plan) http://www.lcmm.org/images/img_education/img_lesson_plans/ddd.pdf

//Pirates:// National Geographic Pirates: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pirates/maina.html Pirates Theme Page: http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/jcheek3/pirates.htm Pyrate’s Providence: http://www.inkyfingers.com/pyrates/index.html Pirates-Brethren of the Sea: http://library.thinkquest.org/J0110360/ Sailor Dictionary of Terms: http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/shanty/seadefin.html Pirate’s Realm-Pirate Talk: http://www.thepiratesrealm.com/pirate%20talk.html How to Talk like a Pirate: http://www.talklikeapirate.com/howto.html Sailor Talk: http://www.yacht-volant.org/SailorTalk/seaterms.html Grim Life Cursed Real Pirates of the Caribbean: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/07/0711_030711_piratescarribean.html A Pirate’s Life Lesson Plan: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/17/gk2/piratelife.html Pirate Names: [|http://www.io.com/~sj/PirateNames.html] Blackbeard the Pirate: http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/sections/maritime/blackbeard/default.htm Piece of Eight: 17th Century Pirating: http://www.pieceofeight.com/ Modern Day Pirates: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1219_021219_tvpiracy.html Pirate Sing Along (Yo ho Yo ho…) http://www.privateerdragons.com/caseys_shiphold.html The Pirate Hunter: [|http://www.echonyc.com/~rzacks/kidd/kiddindex.htm] A Pirate’s Journey: http://tayci.tripod.com/pirate2.html Pirates and Privateers: http://www.cindyvallar.com/piratelinks.html Pirates: http://www.rochedalss.qld.edu.au/pirates/ Pirates of the Caribbean: http://blindkat.hegewisch.net/pirates/pirates.html Sailor School: http://library.thinkquest.org/6169/ssch.htm The Dark Frigate (Lesson Plan) http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/frigate/frigatetg.html Sea Shanties: http://www.geocities.com/captcutlass/Tune.html Shanties and Sailors Songs: http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/shanty.html Shanties and Sea Songs: http://shanty.rendance.org/lyrics/shanties.php Shanties and Sea Songs 2: http://www.jsward.com/shanty/ The New England Pirate Museum http://www.piratemuseum.com/educ.htm

· For this camp, I wanted to have a WebQuest-type activity. We are lucky enough to have several computers on a network that we can use for Internet searching, so I decided to put these to good use. I decided to create a Webquest based on the idea that a modern day pirate ship had been logged at several spots (based on latitude and longitude), that they had been captured by us (the good guys) and several different caches of objects from shipwrecks had been found onboard. The pirates had let slip that they had been looking for old pirate ship, or pirate-caused, shipwrecks. Our kids had to try to figure which logged spots might have been earlier pirate shipwrecks that the new pirates had discovered and begun to excavate, before this information was passed on to the new pirate’s shady cohorts and they pillaged the historic wrecks.

· I also wanted to have some fun with underwater archaeology. Our pit used in a previous camp for a regular dig was converted into a pool through the use of a large tarp. I laid it at the bottom of the pit and used timbers to hold the edges down. Then I added some sand at the bottom (lots of bags of play sand!) and filled it with water. I added the artifacts that the kids would find, burying them in the sand.

· Before the camp, I planned the artifacts (made a few of them), and put them in the sand—most were under the sand but some were half out. I put things in that would have been found on a 17th century ship. I put an old rotting piece of timber in the water to represent a piece of the ship (unlikely it would really have survived that long!), various coins (I had picked up some fake doubloons), a couple pieces of jewelry (like a fancy filigree cross), a few bottles and pottery jars, some shells and pebbles, a couple of rusty nuts and bolts and several other items I can’t remember now! I spread them around so that everyone would have a chance to find something. Then I laid out a string grid of 9 squares (about 1.5 ft. square each--the center square I left pretty blank since it would be hard for anyone to reach that easily)

· I previewed several videos on underwater archaeology and settled on using clips from two (one was a Jacques Cousteau special, “Lost Relics of the Sea,” and the other was the History Channel’s “Deep Sea Detectives: the Search for the Atocha”—which helped to bring up the concept of “treasure hunters” vs. archaeologists.)

· I also researched information about sea shanties and bought a couple of CDs to use as part of our entertainment. I got some regular red bandanas as special rewards for working on the dig. I put their pirate names on the bandanas in permanent marker.

· I developed the clues for the Find That Shipwreck game by first locating five different shipwrecks from the various shipwreck databases (this example has a different one from my original because the Australian database has changed quite a lot and it was too difficult to locate the first one I chose—luckily there were plenty others of the same time period to choose from: [|shipwrecks.doc]). I researched what pirates would have possibly sunk these ships (though in reality they were probably just regular casualties of sea travel). I then found some pictures of “artifacts” for each wreck that would give some clues to the teams. I created a folder for each team, with a worksheet ([|Find that Shipwreck form.doc]), a list of the tracked positions of the modern pirate ship (the //Scuttlebuttle//) ([|tracked positions.doc]), and the pictures of the artifacts [|(Artifacts for Shipwreck Folders.doc]). I also created a hyperlinked Resource Document to guide them through filling in the worksheet [|(Resource Document.htm]), and several (fake) catalogs of commonly found shipwreck artifacts so they could match up their artifacts with something similar to help date them and place them geographically ([|catalog of vessels.doc], [|catalog of jewelry.doc], [|catalog of coins.doc]).

· Then I focused on pirates. I read a lot of the history of pirates, but knew we wouldn’t have time to really go over this. So I decided I would assign the kids some reading to do ahead of time. I read up on pirate talk, and one of the families developed a bingo game with the words to help teach these. I also researched pirate flags and gathered black and white construction paper so they could create one of their own. One of the other activities was for them to learn how to tie knots. I found some inexpensive wooden plaques and some thin rope they could use to tie their knots so they could create a knot plaque.

· To decorate, I had found a pirate ship kite and an old grizzled pirate wind sock. We also put a gang plank up to our front porch, and some scenic window clings of island greenery (made for luau’s I think) in our main windows.

· I sent out “acceptance letters” to the Montwellian Excavation Society’s Summer Institute for Underwater Archaeology ([|acceptanceletter.pdf]). In this they were told they would be learning not only about underwater archaeology but also about the ethnographic details of pirate life in order to better interpret their findings. I sent them several web sites to visit for background information and asked them to choose a pirate name, send it to me via email along with the dastardly deeds for which they are most famous. The kids came up with some great names and some even greater exploits—most hilarious!

· On the day of the camp, I started by having them fill out their own nametags, then I covered a little bit about how the camp would work ([|Schedule1.doc]). We also went over a history of piracy—starting with the very early days of history and coming up to the present days. Next, we watched our videos, because I wanted them to see how underwater archaeology is conducted and both videos had various elements that they needed to know. We did have the discussion on “treasure hunters” vs. archaeologists, and we pretty much agreed that treasure hunters could do a lot of harm, but that they had also helped push the cause of underwater archaeology a long way.
 * Schedule:**

· After a lunch of hot dogs, we started our Find the Shipwreck game. I had five teams of three kids. They got their folders with their information and forms, and were assigned to a computer. I had placed all the hyperlinked documents in a folder on the desktop so they could find that information easily. After setting up the initial scenario, I didn’t give them a whole lot of instruction as I wanted to see how they would figure out their task. As to be expected some groups figured out how to approach the problem fairly quickly while others weren’t quite sure how to get started and I helped those more directly.

· The project was a difficult task because there was a lot of guessing and estimating without much feedback as to whether or not they were “doing it right.” I ended up helping them out a bit more than I thought I would, but they all managed to figure out their shipwreck (or got very close). (NOTE: I’ve revised the list of tracked positions of the //Scuttlebuttle// to include place names under the NOTES column, which I think would have helped them a lot.) I gave out some pirate-related prizes to each team as they completed their tasks (pirate dolls, ship models to do, Lego pirates, treasure chests to decorate, and telescopes).

· It was time for some action after all that brain work, so I put them in teams of two to conduct their digging. Since I don’t have any experience, I basically made up my own rules. I used a grid I had found in a lesson plan (Digging, Diving and Documenting, found in above link) and asked the pairs to take turns “digging” and recording. They were to use the “hand wave” technique we’d seen on the videos to “dig” for artifacts. Once one was found they needed to record their findings on the grid. They then removed the artifact into a bucket of seawater so that artifacts wouldn’t crumble. If the artifacts were strong enough, they could be washed to be viewed more closely.

· They had fun with this activity, but we did end up with one problem—the sand got stirred up and made it difficult to see. A couple of times we just stopped for short time in order for the water to settle back down.

· Then it was time for “scuba practice” in the pool. After dinner (spaghetti with various sauces), we had “dress like a pirate” time. I had hoop earrings for everyone, but most all had brought plenty of costume material. They were great! I took pictures on our digital camera of everyone and we listened to the various sea shanties (I even made a songbook, but no one really wanted to sing: [|songbook.pdf])

· I had them watch an old pirate movie (“The Spanish Main”—the kids didn’t really like it much) while I worked on creating Wanted Posters for each of them in secret--using the dastardly deeds they had written to me. I then had them create their knots plaques, using various web sites ([|Sailors Knots.htm]) to help them learn and gluing on the knots with hot glue. They all went out to play flashlight tag before bed.

· When they came down for breakfast the next day, they were greeted by Wanted posters taped up every where. They really enjoyed that! After breakfast, we played Lingo Bingo—one of the moms had pulled this together for me so I don’t have an example. But it was a fun way to learn the sailor/pirate words and phrases. I also gave them a diagram of a ship to learn what the various parts were called ([|ShipParts.gif]). Then we went outside where I set up two loops of string shaped like small ships about 20 ft. apart. The group split into two and I gave each side a bucket of water balloons. The idea was to have a battle and see how many of the other side you could hit. If you stepped off your ship, you “drowned!” Since everyone was wet at the end of the battle, they were allowed to go swimming before lunch.

· After lunch (sandwiches), they created pirate flags for themselves. I gave them a bit of background and some symbols that were used. Then we had a pirate meeting to develop our own pirate constitution, after I gave them a little background ([|pirate rules.doc]) on this topic (they actually developed our “class rules” for the coming year). Then they were presented with Letters of Marque ([|lettersofmarque.doc]) and sent on their way to be underwater archaeologists--with piratical tendencies!











For more pictures, see this page.