A spectacular example of interdisciplinarity in Bednarska Szkoła Realna is a ten-day camp for our first grade Students in May and June each year.
The school has partnered with Dr. Jerzy Sikora from the Institute of Archaeology (University of Łódź) to organize the camp and use the university’s field base in Biale Błota near Chojnice. Dr. Jerzy Sikora, within the framework of a long-term project, conducts excavation works in the nearby village of Ostrowite. During the 10-day trip, Students are rotationally involved in archaeological work, both in the field and in the classroom, as well as in activities related to the school’s biology, geography, chemistry, physics and history curricula. The Students participate in excavations, engaging in authentic scientific activities. Due to the nature of each stage of the excavation work, the Students experience the whole cycle of archeological research during the camp.
It is worth emphasizing how the Archeo trip seamlessly combines elements of very different subjects during the realization of particular tasks by the Students thanks to the excavation supervisor’s approach (the use of modern surveying, computer equipment, specialized software; the use of aerial photography and the GIS system, cooperation with geophysicists and geomorphologists) and the multi-faceted nature of his work (geological, historical and cultural contexts, chemical conditions associated with, among other things, soil fertilization and corrosion of artifacts, lime firing processes, the biological context – human skeletons, fragments of animal bones and objects made from them, plant imprints in burnt clay, dendrochronology, changes in the nearby lake). Classes take place in the area of the so-called Kosznajderia – inhabited for five centuries by a culturally distinct German population of the Roman Catholic faith. This phenomenon and its material traces are a source of interesting inquiries carried out during field reconnaissance.
