Dig unearths lessons for Timberlake students

Students wielding picks, shovels and spades flung dirt into the air at Timberlake Middle School Tuesday.

As students rigorously dug up the campus, “artifact!” was shouted by seventh grader Blake White to his social studies classmates, themselves furiously digging across a 90-meter grid of unused space near a side lot.

The grid, broken up into 1-meter squares by stakes and string, had 30 to 40 students working tirelessly to find artifacts buried by Timberlake social studies teachers Jennifer Emory and Andrew Kessner.

Emory and Kessner, who love to both compete and collaborate, organized a full-scale schoolwide archeological dig on campus.

“The big goal was to get everybody involved that we possibly could,” Kessner said.

The instructors organized the dig to bring the school together for something fun and educational before summer vacation.

History classes got to dig and sift dirt, later cataloguing artifacts during social studies class. Math students laid out the grid in the morning and art students painted rocks to bury in random squares. English students will write reports on the findings and science classes will test soils.

The community also got involved. Landscaper Ryan Pennella of Pennella Land and Tree volunteered to excavate and, later, bury the entire 90 meters. Parents donated roughly 700 “artifacts” to be buried.

The plot was ready for digging in the morning and students will continue the dig until they find everything, hopefully.

“We never got to do anything this fun in history class all year,” seventh grader Noah Childress said.

Teachers pulled out all the stops. Kessner showed up to class looking the part, dressed as Indiana Jones and ready to compete. He asked his seventh grade class to be patient in their digging, with no large shovels or aggressive tools, so their artifacts will be the most preserved and undamaged in the end.

“I know for a fact that eighth grade broke several artifacts,” he shouted during a pep talk for period three. “Seventh grade isn’t going to do that.”

The seventh grade students had hand tools to fill small buckets with dirt and a brush for slowly uncovering anything that looked man-made.

“I’m not trying to break a record,” seventh grader Coltrane Looysen said. “It’s not a race to fill the bucket.”

Buckets were then taken over to sifters, who sifted all the dirt through screens. Sifters bagged anything they found and labeled it with the grid coordinates where the dirt came from.

The entire grid should be dug up, with the items fully cataloged, by the end of the week.

Emory also looked the part as Marion Ravenwood, and led her eighth grade classes to be effective. Students used up to seven shovels to dig up their squares. They found several artifacts by lunch.

Both seventh and eighth grade students found an album by The Judds. The one found by eighth graders had a piece broken off and some major cover damage. But the one seventh graders found was in near-playable condition.

“It’s not a competition, but we’re winning,” Noah said.

While the underlying spirit was competitive, it was all in good fun, and geared to bring joy and fervor to the whole experience.

“We’re most-excited about seeing a spark,” Emory said. “Watching the spark in these kids who get to teach and get to be leaders.”

Next year, students who have participated will get to teach the new students how to conduct the dig, and teachers will be more hands-off.

“We have had tremendous success out here, having students teach students,” Kessner said. “I am so excited that we have staff here who were really able to jump in and help — and be excited about it.”