Bits and Bodies

Archaeologists have to piece together fragments of evidence from the past and use detective skills to reach accurate conclusions. In this exciting documentary, three teams of children develop similar skills in an entertaining way, investigating objects and sifting the evidence before them while competing for the title of `Champion Detectives.' All the games can easily be set up as classroom exercises. Handling and analyzing everyday objects is a way of active learning which develops a wide range of skills like recognizing and classifying, recording and examining, explaining and forming conclusions. The teams begin by sorting objects accurately into categories, such as stone, clay and bone, like finds on an archaeological site. This involves handling, comparing and questioning - for example, is the object made of one material or several? The Lost Luggage Game and the Feely Bag Game call for teamwork to solve a problem with a variety of mystery objects. Others investigate portraits, looking at facial expressions, clothes and background detail, or unfamiliar artefacts, deciding for example whether they are hand- or machine-made. In the Skeleton Game, surviving clues build up a picture of the person when they were living - what can a ring or a coin tell us? For the Brushes Game, the team must choose and label items for a museum display. After playing three different games each, a final question round decides the championship.

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