Speakers are now available via Zoom!
What is the ORIAS Speakers Bureau?
The ORIAS Speakers Bureau is a cohort of graduate students who offer 45-minute presentations specifically geared to students from middle school to community college. Each talk models important Common Core Social Studies skills, such as analysis of texts and use of evidence to build an argument. Many talks include content that dovetails with History Social-Science Content Standards, while all talks offer opportunities for inquiry-based student engagement, as outlined in the new History-Social Science Framework. Most presentations are also appropriate for more than one grade level or subject, because they address broad questions while focusing on specific events and topics.
Presentations
Global Vikings: the untold history of the world's greatest travelers, from North America to the Arab World
Speaker: Sara Ann Knutson
The people from Scandinavia known as "Vikings" were infamous male raiders, pirates, and pillagers-- or so popular culture has led us to believe. But who were these people in reality? And what can the untold history of the Vikings and their global travels teach us about our own world today?
Students will explore the travels of the Scandinavian Vikings, from their settlements in North America, to the migrations of Vikings down the Volga River in modern-day Russia, to evidence of the Vikings riding camels to trade with Arab merchants in Baghdad and throughout the Abbasid Caliphate. This presentation also includes an investigation into the work of modern-day archaeologists, what they do, how they gather and interpret evidence to understand the past, and why their work matters.
Through this experience, students will explore how the past can help us better understand issues that affect our own lives, including race and ethnicity, social networks, human migrations and migrant narratives, and modern appropriations (and misuses) of history.
This presentation has great flexibility to address different levels of students, beginning with exploring what material objects can tell us about the world and the people who created them, the impressive and little known global connections between Vikings and the Abbasid Caliphate, to increasingly complex concepts of how history can be (and has been) distorted and appropriated for different social and political agendas.
About the Speaker
Sara Ann grew up in Michigan and has lived in three countries abroad during her adult life. First trained in History at the University of Michigan, she became an archaeologist to study the travels of the Scandinavian Vikings and the people (from at least four continents!) that they interacted with. She holds an MPhil in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge and is currently working on her PhD in Anthropology at UC Berkeley. When she is not conducting research and teaching, Sara Ann enjoys learning languages, public speaking, traveling to new countries, training for the next big triathlon race, and sharing her passion for the global history of cultural interactions with communities around the world.
Suggested Audiences
Age: 6th – 12th grade and community college
Preparation: There is no preparation necessary, though the talk will be more meaningful to students who have studied one or more of the following: the spread of Islam and the Abbasid caliphate, Medieval Europe, the European colonization of North America.
Courses: World History, Human Geography, Global Studies
Studying Primates and their World
Speaker: Gustav Steinhardt
When people think about primate societies, they often imagine a small group organized around a dominant Alpha Male and his many females. But in some species, the central figure is a dominant female with many males.
How did that system evolve, and what can it tell us about social behavior in other primates, including humans? This talk explores the differences in primate societies, with a special focus on the scientific process - how we frame questions, the differences between lab work and field work, and how researchers draw on different domains of science in their work.
About the Speaker
At age 7, Gustav Steinhardt had a close encounter with a tamarin monkey at the National Zoo. He never recovered; now, as a fourth-year PhD student in Biological Anthropology, his interests lie at the intersection of behavior, neuroscience, and ecology. Before coming to Berkeley, he earned a BA from the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies at the University of Redlands, then an MA in interdisciplinary humanities from the University of Chicago. After finishing the MA, he switched into STEM and now works on the behavior and ecology of tamarins. His 20-year-old self would be surprised by his current career; his 7-year-old self would not.
Suggested Audiences
Age: 6th – 12th grade and community college, though more accessible to students in high school and above. Middle school students will need preparation in terms of vocabulary.
Preparation: Students would benefit from prior learning about evolution and natural selection. The teacher may want to request a vocabulary list to help prepare students ahead of time.
Courses: Biology or AP Biology, Environmental Science, Psychology, Sociology
How Mud, Trash, and Poop Reveal Ancient Climate Changes
Speaker: AJ White
Understanding climate change that occurred hundreds to thousands of years ago is difficult, so scientists turn to some unusual, and sometimes stinky, places to get paleoclimatic data. Feel how mud contains valuable information about former rainfall, evaporation, and temperature conditions at both the macroscopic and microscopic levels. See how trash left by ancient people lets archaeologists discover the impact of humans on the environment. Finally, smell how poop molecules can tie paleoclimatic and archaeological data together to assess the impact of climate change on civilizations of the past.
About the Speaker
AJ was particularly impacted by the book "Everybody Poops" in the early 1990s and found an academic release for his interests during his master's work in geology at Long Beach State assessing the use of fecal molecules as indicators of population change. He continues his research in the Anthropology Department at UC Berkeley with an emphasis on how fecal molecules can unite paleoenvironmental and archaeological data to more effectively understand the complex relationship of humans and the environment.
Suggested Audiences
Age: 6th – 12th grade and community college
Preparation: No preparation is needed ahead of time.
Courses: World History, Human Geography, Environmental Science, Chemistry, Earth Science, Biology
"Made in China"
Speaker: Patricia Yu
How do objects tell their stories? This talk uses objects of the early China trade (17th to 19th centuries) to demonstrate how movement across boundaries and between cultures can produce creative transformations—in objects and in people. "Made in China" may be seen as a mark of cheap, low-quality, mass-produced goods today, but in previous centuries, objects "made in China" were highly desired luxury goods, inspiring voyages around the world. One of the first goals of the new American nation was to send a ship to China and the relationships formed among the cosmopolitan group of merchants in the port city of Canton would shape not only the formation of the American nation, but also lay the foundation for our own global age.
About the Speaker
Patricia J. Yu was born in Los Angeles, California and studied history at Pomona College. As an undergrad she completed paid summer museum internships at the Chinese American Museum and the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College, eventually leading her to pursue a doctoral degree in the Department of the History of Art at UC Berkeley. Her research specializes in Chinese art history, cross-cultural translation and exchange, and cultural heritage. She has just completed a graduate curatorial fellowship at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, where she participated in the exhibition planning for the museum's gallery of Asian export art.
Suggested Audiences
Age: 7th – 12th grade and community college.
Preparation: There is no preparation required, but students will benefit most from this talk if they have some familiarity with interactions between China and European powers in the mid-19th century, including the Canton system and the Opium Wars.
Courses: World History, US History, Ethnic Studies, Art & Architecture History