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Don Frazier Melting the Iceman Program Title: Ice Mummies Subject(s): Social Studies Grade Level: 9

Don Frazier wants his students to bring the Iceman back to life.

The Iceman, believed to have lived in the Italian Alps more than 5,000 years ago, was found in 1991 with items such as a bead with rawhide strings and a cape of grass. He is featured in NOVA's Iceman and Return of the Iceman programs.

Frazier, a social studies teacher at Montpelier High School in Vermont, uses the original program in his unit on ancient history. His students first review branches of anthropology and then research information about the Iceman. After being assigned to groups, students watch the program, each taking notes on different aspects of the Iceman and his archeological recovery.

Following the program, students pair up and create a scenario in which one plays the Iceman who has returned to life, and the other plays a reporter who interviews the Iceman. Students develop a short story explaining how the Iceman is brought to life and create a list of 10 questions for the Iceman to answer. When done, they act out their interview in front of the class.

Questions cover what the Iceman's society might have been like in Neolithic times, the way the Iceman might have made his living, and what it might have been like to live back then, such as what the Iceman might have done for fun and even what dating might have been like.

Throughout the unit, Frazier tries to address as many learning styles, or multiple intelligences, as possible. (Harvard University's Howard Gardner has proposed the following intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist). For example, students express linguistic intelligence through writing the short story, bodily kinesthetic intelligence through acting out the interview, and interpersonal intelligence through teamwork.

Frazier, who has been teaching for five years, also has students think critically, considering such issues as how the Iceman would react to life if he were alive now and what connections exist between people today and people of the Iceman's age 5,000 years ago.

The Iceman program offers interdisciplinary lesson connections as well, Frazier says, particularly in science, where connections could be made to electron microscopy and DNA analysis.

Frazier's lesson can be found on NOVA Online. —Karen Hartley