Welcome to the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon's portal for Educators!  

Here you will find a curriculum designed to help you and your students learn about the field and processes of archaeology.  This is done through the lens of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, Israel, where for the last 25 years archaeologists have been excavating the ancient cities of Ashkelon.  

Who are the educators writing the curriculum?

Mrs. Nichole Moos is a National Board Certified Early Childhood Generalist teacher who has seven years of classroom teaching experience. She holds a M.A. in Early Childhood education with a focus on emergent curriculum. In emergent curriculum classrooms, teachers observe students and develop a web of student ideas that could be followed; then the teacher designs a curriculum that meets that needs of the students. Each year Mrs. Moos has created a new curriculum for her students involving object study, field trips, student reflection, guest speakers, and documentation of student learning through videos and photography.  Additionally, Mrs. Moos has extensive experience using video, photos, and discussions of the day to inform parents of students’ learning and offer suggestions on how they can enhance learning at home. 

Mrs. Kerrie Rovito holds a M.S. in Elementary Science/Social Studies Education and is National Board Certified in Early Adolescent Science. With skills acquired through both her university and National Board training, Mrs. Rovito has created numerous science and social studies units which emphasize hands-on learning. To better meet the needs of her school, she collaborated with teachers from all grade levels and subject areas to tie reading, writing, math, and social studies into the curricula, which she aligned to the new Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards. These units were designed to be used school wide and in various classrooms throughout Chicago Public Schools. She developed the entire curriculum for 5th grade Social Studies using the school-wide framework and brought primary resources into her classroom so students could experience ancient worlds and religion first-hand.