As an opening activity in their history class, Yavneh middle school students assumed the roles of archaeologists and excavated artifacts from the Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations. As the students dug into their boxes and uncovered each item they completed graphic organizers with drawings and observations about their objects. With their group members, they made inferences about how the Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations lived based on their observations about the artifacts. The students are looking forward to learning more about the artifacts they uncovered and matching them to the correct civilizations! As the year progresses they will revisit many of these artifacts and explore each ancient civilization in depth.