Innovation Project for
2025-26 Unearthed Season

For our Innovation Project we all started by researching this year's theme: archaeology. Some of us listened to podcasts, read online articles & books, watched webinars, and attended a presentation at the historical society about local archaeology sites. We also took a team field trip to America’s Stonehenge, where we got to talk to their onsite archaeologist, James. Some archaeologists talked about problems with the weather, preservation issues, and construction covering up potential dig sites. But everyone we listened to said that there wasn’t enough volunteers and there’s not enough funding. Once we identified that main problem, we came up with the idea to create a game that could increase interest. And the profits could be donated to funds. We considered a board game but thought people could maybe get video game credits for volunteering in real life. But an anthropologist we spoke to, said you need volunteers who want to be there so that they’re gentle and care about the artifacts. She also said that in her opinion curriculum is part of the problem. Kids don’t understand why archaeology and history is so important anymore and most people say it’s boring. So she thought more engaging curriculum would be helpful. We considered her advice and decided to make a curriculum based video game that would increase interest and help with funding. We decided to use a game lots of kids already play and build it into Minecraft, which was also the preferred format when we surveyed people. To play the game, you explore different archaeology sites. You virtually dig the site and uncover the structures and artifacts. As you explore, there are built in lessons about the sites, structures, and history. There are also trivia questions and mini-games within the game. It’s currently a free server in building and testing but some day it would be a paid game. We started with America’s Stonehenge because that is where our team went, but based on feedback, we would add in Pyramids next. Eventually we’d want lots of archaeology sites represented in the game. Our solution could have a big impact on archaeology. It could help fund some local projects but it has the greatest potential to make archaeology fun and engaging, which may inspire future career choices and volunteers!