50 minute Lesson Plan
Learning Objectives:
- Students will learn about the Justinianic Plague and the pathogen believed to be behind it, Yersinia Pestis.
- Students will engage in critical thinking through discussing how archaeological results are obtained.
- Students will engage in ethical thinking through discussion of situational scenarios of victims and survivors of the Justinianic Plague.
10 mins: Students access the PlaguePaths website and read the pages “Justinianic Plague” and “Archaeology and Ethics” in groups of two. This does not need to be silent discussion: students are encouraged to read and process information together. Students should discuss in pairs the questions at the end of this informational pages.
20 mins: Students are divided into two groups. One group reads the page and participates in the VR experience for the site Aschheim, another reads the page and participates in the VR experience for the site Yonne.
10 mins: Students debrief within their groups about their experience, while addressing the questions asked throughout the VR experience and the questions at the end of their site’s page. The instructor should also, while walking around, introduce questions that get students to share how they felt about what they saw or heard.
9 mins: Students rejoin the class and the instructor asks students from each group to share some of the things they experienced and their discussions about the questions they were asked. Instructor also asks the students to think about both Yonne and Aschheim together: What do their experiences reveal about pathogen research and discovery?
1min: students write one thing they want to remember about this experience anonymously on a notecard, to be collected by the instructor. Instructor is encouraged to share these notecards with the PlaguePaths team.
Click here to go to the map | Click here to go to the Introduction Pages
Plague Paths: The Archaeology of the Justinianic Plague Online 