UNEARTHED: Let’s Dig Deeper!
THEN welcomes this year’s FIRST LEGO challenge focused on archaeology. It’s a great opportunity for your team to discover how we learn about the past and to use your creativity to solve the problems archaeologists might encounter. Below are some resources for you to consider.
THEN has a free annotated bibliography available for educators to search about archaeology, teaching archaeology, and other topics.
For this challenge, specifically, some of your best sources are the two main American archaeological organizations, which have posted information addressing UNEARTHED: Let’s Dig Deeper!
The Archaeological Institute of American (AIA) has a web page of resources, FIRST LEGO League Challenge 2025-2026.
There are two videos on the page, also available on YouTube, “Ask an Archaeologist: Unearthing Challenges in Archaeology,” and “Ask An Archaeologist: Tech Edition.” The first one is a general introduction to the challenge; the second one is focused on tech, specifically.
The AIA webpage also has other resources, including a list of common challenges, questions frequently asked by teams, links to other resources on their website, tips from other teams, information on how to find an archaeologist to talk to, and more.
The Society for American Archaeology (SAA) hosted a webinar on October 1, 2025, where four archaeologists answer questions about the challenge and talk about how we learn about the past. It is available on YouTube or you can link to it directly here:
Exploring Archaeological Challenges: A Webinar for FIRST® LEGO® League UNEARTHED(TM) Robotics Teams.” The SAA website also has information about archaeology that answers questions about what it is and what archaeologists do, among others.
Please also feel free to contact us here at THEN if you need to talk to an archaeologist or have other questions you want answered.
We’ll be happy to help!