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A trip back in time via Cravens World
Students from Cheektowaga Middle School take part in the Cravens collection scavenger hunt.
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“This is the culmination of all we have been working to achieve: Objects made by people from around the world and across history are now in the hands of Buffalo school children.”
The UB Anderson Gallery, the Department of Anthropology and the Graduate School of Education launched a museum outreach initiative this week, inviting 180 students from Cheektowaga Middle School to take a trip back in time through the gallery’s new Cravens World exhibition.
The students’ visits, which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, comprised the first on-site educational outreach project that UB has conducted with the 1,100-piece Cravens collection, which includes dolls, masks, trinkets, vases, weapons and other objects from six continents, dating as far back as 4,500 B.C.
Annette Cravens, the UB alumna, world traveler and philanthropist who donated the items to the College of Arts and Sciences, dropped by the Anderson Gallery on Tuesday to meet some of the children. Outreach was a major priority for Cravens, whose gift to UB included funding to make the collection accessible to the community, including public school students.
“This is the culmination of all we have been working to achieve: Objects made by people from around the world and across history are now in the hands of Buffalo school children,” said Peter Biehl, associate professor of anthropology and director of the Cravens World project. “Annette's vision has been realized.”
During their field trip, the middle school students participated in a scavenger hunt and mask-making activity designed to help them understand the material culture of societies around the world. The children also donned gloves to handle precious artifacts as part of a cataloguing exercise that introduced the youngsters to techniques archaeologists use when documenting excavated objects.
Graduate students, including Laura Harrison, Cravens collection teaching assistant, and Eric Yarwood, Cravens outreach teaching assistant, led the activities under the supervision of Biehl and Sarah Robert, assistant professor of learning and instruction and director of outreach for Cravens World.
For more information about the Cravens World project, visit the project’s website.
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