At the start of the 2025-2026 school year, Lighridge began offering a new class – archaeology. The new, original curriculum was handcrafted by Christopher Johnson and is geared toward having students engage with the “tangible” historical artifacts that they don’t often experience in a typical history class.
When Johnson was in graduate school, getting his master degree in history, he had the opportunity to participate in “field school,” which is where people get to collaborate with archaeologists to learn more about the career. This is where his passion for archaeology began.
“Going to that field school absolutely changed how I see the past,” said Johnson.
For the past few years Johnson has been in an archaeology technician certification program. Learning from this course inspired him to create a new class here at Lightridge.
“I sort of realized that there is a lot that archaeology offers in terms of perspective and understanding about your community and your country,” explained Johnson.
“For all of our SOLs for history there is always a component about archaeology,” said Johnson “but they never really go into how it works, how these connections are made.” Johnson wanted to give students an opportunity to understand more about history through physical objects, in addition to the traditional material learned in a history class.
“We get to do a lot of hands-on, experimental things, a lot of projects, and there is a lot of group work which I also really like,” said Anandita Saxena, a senior in the archeology class.
“I really like the crossover [between history and archeology] because obviously history is my main passion, and a lot of what we are looking at in this area, there is a lot of historical record for,” explained Johnson. “ I think they compliment each other very well.”
In the fall, the class went on a field trip to an archeological dig site at Historic Germanna. The trip gave students an opportunity to interact with the items they have been studying.
“They let us do what they call ‘shovel test pits’ which is where you dig holes in various places, strategically, to know where you should dig more, “said Johnson. Students also got to go into the lab at the dig site to clean and sort previously discovered artifacts..
On January 22, the archaeology class went on a service project, with the African American studies class, to help Historic Waterford photograph, and scan artifacts that were found in the 1990s. Johnson plans on taking the class back to this site to continue working on this project.
“Its fun to see what people wrote, and what’s left, and this is what we can learn from what they left behind,” said Johnson “I think it was a great opportunity for students to get a sense, at least part, of what the career is like”.
Johnson plans to teach this class again next year and incorporate even more interaction with artifacts in the future.
“I would recommend this class because first of all it is really fun, and Mr. Johnson makes the class very engaging.” explained Saxena. “It’s a really fun course and I would recommend it to anybody.”
