Students from the Pennington Latin program travelled to Philadelphia on Tuesday, November 11, to visit the Penn Museum's world-class collection, which is focused on archaeology and anthropology. Situated on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus, the historic building boasts impressive exhibitions with over a million different artifacts curated throughout the museum’s 130+-year history.    

The group from Pennington completed a scavenger-hunt activity that challenged them to find different kinds of artifacts spread throughout the museum. The students also participated in an archaeologist-led workshop, focusing on Minoan Crete, and were later given a guided tour through the museum’s Roman, Greek, and Etruscan collections.

According to teachers of Latin, William Dingee and Peter Secrest, the hands-on experience enabled students to form connections with these artifacts in a way that supported both what they have been learning in Latin classes, as well as in the broader Pennington curriculum. "While students get a lot out of learning about the language, history, and culture of the ancient world in the classroom, it is so important to get kids out of the classroom to interact with the physical legacy of the past," emphasized Dingee. "Museum experiences help bring history alive for students and there is no substitute for seeing real artifacts created and used by people from the distant past."

Reflecting on the trip, ninth-grader Ana L. wrote: "My favorite artifact was the piece of ceramic stone with a portion from the epic of Gilgamesh because we have been learning about ancient Mesopotamia in my history class, and we are also covering the Epic of Gilgamesh. This was an interesting find for me!"