2003 SAA Excellence in Public Education Award recipient, Jeanne Moe with (then) SAA President Roger Kelley. For more than a decade, Jeanne Moe has promoted archaeological stewardship and educated the nation’s youth about archaeological issues as Director and co-creator of Project Archaeology, a BLM-created public education program now operated in association with the non-profit environmental concern The Watercourse.

Jeanne Moe is the National Project Archaeology director for the Bureau of Land Management and The Watercourse at Montana State University. National Project Archaeology (NPA) began as a state Bureau of Land Management archaeology education program in Utah in the early 1990’s. Since 1993,Project Archaeology has been a leader in archaeology education with the publication of Intrigue of the Past: A Teacher’s Activity for Fourth Through Seventh Grades (Smith, Shelly J. Jeanne M. Moe, Kelly A. Letts, and Danielle M. Patterson), a text that focuses primarily on prehistoric archaeology in the west.

PA has two main components: (1) instructional materials for educators and their students, and (2) delivery of materials through professional development workshops. State programs affiliated with NPA also design additional enrichment for students and teachers, and supplementary materials on regional history and prehistory.

NPA is unique among national archaeology education programs because its materials are delivered to teachers through professional development workshops taught by teams of educators and archaeologists. These workshops, available for in-service credit, allow teachers to absorb new content, refresh their engagement with civic values that underlie efforts to preserve our archaeological heritage, and discuss controversial issues in a professional forum before presenting them in their classrooms. In 2001, nineteen states reported a total of 33 workshops and 541 teachers trained. Overall it is estimated that over 5100 teachers have participated in National Project Archaeology. Generally speaking, if each teacher reaches 25 students, Project Archaeology has reached over 127,500 students! State program evaluations show that nearly 80% of teachers continue to use the curriculum and maintain contact with archaeologists, historians, and scholars for us to five years after attending NPS workshops.
In 2002, NPA established the National Project Archaeology Advisory Council with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Council recommended that NPS expand geographically to establish affiliate programs in all U.S. States, and enhance program content to include all major heritage groups in the nation. As a response to this recommendation, Project Archaeology is undertaking a major revision to be responsive to the diverse national audience within the current educational system driven by national and state learning standards and by current archaeological research and ethical practices.

For more than a decade, first as Director of the Utah State Bureau of Land Management’s Intrigue of the Past: Archaeological Education Program, and then as Director of National Project Archaeology, Jeanne Moe has been instrumental in developing these quality educational resources that engage students and teachers with the citizenship values that underlie efforts to preserve archaeological heritage. Jeanne Moe’s pioneering leadership in archaeological education has helped make archaeological research available to the public.

(This summary was derived from nomination material submitted by Joelle Clark in 2003 and from the SAA Press Release announcing this award.)

For further Information on Jeanne Moe’s accomplishments see the following:
• SAA Archaeological Record (2003 Vol. 3, No. 3 ) page 39.
• Project Archaeology