Over the past six years Dr Liz Curtis has been working on a range of AHRC and Lottery funded community archaeology projects with the Bailies of Bennachie and colleagues from the School of Education and the wider University. One of the most recent projects has been the creation of an app which explores the lives of the people who lived on Bennachie in the 19th Century which was launched in June 2018 with children from Insch Primary school.
Digital technology is part of the fabric everyday life particularly for young people and using the app is a great way to bring the otherwise difficult to comprehend ruinous humps and bumps of history to life while learning out of doors.
Through carrying out research on how people, including school classes, learn through active participation in local archaeology projects Dr Curtis has developed what is now our 3rd Year MA Education Making History Professional Focus. This year thanks to a small grant the students were able to go on a fieldtrip to the Bennachie led by Garioch Ranger Alison Sutherland to test out the Colony App for themselves.
One of our students, Natalie Bremner commented that, “it was something that I had never seen before and feel it was a useful tool for learning about the Colony Trail. It helped you to gain a whole picture of what the buildings would have looked like back then, and provided extra information which I found very useful when learning on the walk. It was an interesting way to look back into the past by just using the lens of your phone”.