Mai Vu, our 2024–25 Student Assistant and a UCLA Public Affairs major with a Digital Humanities minor, created this lesson plan as part of her senior capstone project. Using digital collections from the Refugee Material Culture Initiative, she developed a high school lesson plan that combines digital humanities praxis, which applies data-driven and technology-based approaches to research, with social science inquiry focused on critical thinking and contextual analysis.
Tracing Histories Through Artifacts: Analyzing and Preserving Vietnamese Refugee Material Culture
This lesson plan, designed for high school students to complete over the course of a 60–75 minute class period, introduces students to Vietnamese refugee artifacts as a form of historical evidence. Drawing from RMCI's digital collections, the lesson engages students in analyzing real objects from the Vietnamese diaspora using archaeological research methods such as material analysis, provenance, and contextualization. Students begin by reflecting on what object they would bring if they had to flee their home, then interpret a classmate’s chosen object without context to simulate the challenges of artifact interpretation. Next, a short lecture presents core methods for analyzing material culture and explains the significance of digital preservation. Students then put these concepts into practice by selecting a digitized Vietnamese refugee artifact from RMCI’s online collection and completing an artifact analysis worksheet. The lesson concludes with group discussion and a written reflection to reinforce the importance of preserving both artifacts and the stories behind them.
Download the lesson plan here: