CD-ROM offers students a glimpse into ancient past

MIRIAM HILL

When Lynn Peplinski tried to find out what resources were available to teach children about Inuit pre-history, she ordered a CD from the Canadian Museum of Civilization for ages nine and up.

“The main character who comes on and narrates is Chinese and he has a British accent,” she said. “It doesn’t really work very well.”

Peplinski is a heritage manager at the Inuit Heritage Trust, an organization established by and for the Inuit of Nunavut in 1994. It is dedicated to the preservation, enrichment, and protection of Inuit cultural heritage and identity embodied in Nunavut’s archaeological sites, ethnographic resources and traditional place names.

This year, the organization has been working on a massive project — a CD-ROM of Inuit pre-history in both English and Inuktitut to be used in the Grade 8 social studies curriculum.

“It tells people about their ancestors, starting with the very earliest people right through to the early Dorset, late Dorset and Thule,” she said. “There’s no resource like this anywhere.”

There are many Arctic archaeologists, but their work is commonly written up in academic journals or books scattered all over the place, not readily accessible to students or teachers.

The CD, Arctic Peoples and Archaeology, compiled by former Inuksuk High School teacher Colleen Armstrong, is “a thing of beauty,” according to Peplinski.

It is split into different sections, including the environment, the challenges of human adaptation and archaeology in the Arctic. It’s meant to be a teaching tool, accompanied by a teacher’s guide and suggested learning outcomes, but more importantly it’s fun. Instead of poring through books in a library and picking up bits and pieces of information here and there, a student can put a CD into the computer, click on English or Inuktitut or enter an interactive textbook with photos, movies and audio.

There’s been a lot of collaboration with the department of education in Arviat. The elders on staff have contributed a lot to the CD as well. Mark Kalluak, an elder who also did some translating for other elders, provides the audio. Michael Kilabuk did the Inuktitut translation.

“There’s lots of photos of what archaeologists look for, what they find, and then there’s a whole reconstructed archaeology site,” Peplinski said. The site is modeled after one in the high Arctic where Thule and Dorset peoples mixed.

The interactive CD allows users to grab a trowel with the mouse and drag it across the ground to discover buried artifacts. The artifacts can be dragged to another box to find out what the elders and archaeologists say about the artifacts and how ancient peoples used them.

There are also movie clips to watch. Peplinski explained that an archaeologist doing a field course in Igloolik some years ago contributed video clips of students cleaning artifacts and explaining what they’re doing.

“It’s all in here,” she said.

Peplinski said the project, which started about a year and a half ago, has cost the trust $55,000 to produce. The department of education has offered a lot of in-kind support, too.

The Francophone community has expressed interest in having the CD-ROM’s materials translated to French as well, and educators in Alberta have made overtures indicating interest in the CD for their school system.

Peplinski said the goal is to have the CD-ROM in classrooms this fall.