Anthropologist Teacher Resources

Claude Levi-Strauss’s Structural Anthropology contends that distance and details separate world cultures—and not much else. High schoolers watch a short explanatory video to learn more about the theory of structuralism, the societial...

Anthropologists ask the question that everyone wants answered: what does it mean to be human? An online handout provides a brief introduction to the study of anthropology and outlines three common types of anthropology writing...

Oxford professor E.E. Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande is credited with developing the field of social anthropology. Introduce viewers to his argument that in the absence of science, societies like the...

Spice up your study of basic anthropology terms using this decoding instructional activity. Using a provided code, learners answer 10 fill-in-the-blank questions. Because the code is very simple, more advanced pupils may enjoy the...

What tools do archaeologists and anthropologist use to learned about what life was like in the past. After watching West of The West's documentary Once Upon a Time that details how scientists use artifacts to establish a history of the...

By posing controversial questions about racially charged words and jokes, this presentation explores the function and use of ethnic humor. Sure to inspire debates and discussions in your sociology or anthropology class, the slideshow...

Find out what every anthropologist already knows by reading the book, Guns, Germs & Steel. This presentation is to accompany a reading of chapter 14 from the book, it helps define basic concepts and terms related to the effect of...

How do we know how long ago a dinosaur lived or an ancient fire pit was used? Scholars learn about the application of carbon dating and half lives to discover things about the past. They adjust the amount of radioactive carbon in the...

In this word search worksheet, students locate 20 vocabulary words related to physical anthropology. The word list includes allele, amino acids, and taxonomy.

Expose your archaeologists to a variety of vocabulary words that deal with people who work in the fields of archeology, anthropology, and paleontology. Pictures accompany each of the slides so there is a visual associated with each...

Young scholars investigate the role of ceremonies and other traditions of Native American cultures. They research various Native American nations and create posters that visually depict their research.

Sixth graders discuss the work of anthropologists in discovering ancient finds of fossils, ancient pottery, or dinosaur bones. They look at fossil casts and track current news about anthropology. They write a letter to an anthropologist...

Students study the atrocities of slavery. They examine the issues raised by the legacy of slavery in Brazil by reading and discussing "Brazil's Former Slave Havens Slowly Pressing for Rights." They create a slave identity based on...

Learners are introduced to the topics of archaeology and anthropology. In groups, they examine the methods they use to gather information about the history of certain groups. They analyze artifacts to draw conclusions about the various...

It's all just skin deep. An anthropologist explains in a video how she used UV radiation data from NASA to come up with a theory on how human skin color has evolved over time. The skin has to be dark enough to block harmful UV radiation,...

Students examine the combined subjects of anthropology and sociology and explain how the disciplines would study the same issue. On poster board, they locate or draw pictures related to the two subjects. Once this is completed, students...

Twelfth graders explore women (or men if they are underrepresented) who are leaders and achievers in the particular core content curriculum area.  In this Anthropology lesson, 12th graders study the women who have distinguished...

Twelfth graders identify women who have excelled in anthropology. They present their findings which are compiled with other students' research to produce a list of women anthropologists.

Explore caves with your class! Your scholars will participate in scientific observation, research, inference and deduction, reading, vocabulary, and writing activities about caves with this lesson plan. This resource contains five...

Students study the four main subdivisions of anthropology and how they overlap. They explore the careers of several contemporary anthropologists and their fieldwork, comparing the methods and applications of their work.

This could be a very enriching and beautiful project for your class. They learn about the amazing prehistoric Lascaux Cave and view images of the art found there. They review vocabulary common to both Anthropology and ceramics, then...

Could geography really be the most logical explanation for the success rate of any given population? Jared Diamond makes his anthropological contention in his 1997 publication Guns, Germs, and Steel. A short explores his main points and...

Skeletons may not be able to speak, but they can still tell us a lot. High schoolers watch a short video about the ways biological anthropologists can use a skeleton's bone structure to determine age, gender, place of birth, and social...

Do traditional customs of Islam contradict western feminism? Explore this and more using a video summary of Saba Mahmood's Politics of Piety, part of an extensive playlist about the world's greatest ideas. It addresses a common...