Reflection On Service Learning Anthropology

When I first arrived at the CSUN campus to continue with my service learning project, I needed to contact my supervisor of this project Dr. Snead in his office. I went to his office to check myself in and to help me to access to the archaeology lab where the geology collection is being kept in. Dr. Snead was not in his office so the next viable option I had was to email him about my current situation. He responded to my email ten minutes later and he explained to me that I needed to go to the anthropology office and ask one of the assistant to open the archaeology lab for me. I went to the anthropology office and told the assistant about helping me access the archaeology lab. The assistant agreed to help me out and I followed him to the

archaeology lab where he unlocked the front door by inputting an access code. He also told me that if I needed to step out of the archaeology lab, I needed to go back to the anthropology office and ask for someone to let me in the archaeology lab again.

I thanked the assistant for his help and began working on the geology collection. My main concern with this service learning project is that how can I relate the work I needed to do with the geology collection to the methods and theories used in anthropology and archaeology. This is one of major issues I have learned in lecture about the challenges with practice anthropology because how does an academic student such as myself apply the methods and theories learned from academic anthropology and transition them into actual research and work in a particular field. The problem I have with this service learning project is that I do not have a full understanding of the methods used in anthropology and archaeology because I am a new transfer student who came to CSUN last semester. I have learned many of the main concepts, terminology, theories and the history of anthropology from my previous anthropology classes in community college and in CSUN, however I have not been exposed to the actual methods used in anthropology and archaeology in great detail. It was difficult for me to figure out how do I begin organizing with the geology collection without any guidance or advice from Dr. Snead since he was not on campus at the

moment.

Regardless of my lack of knowledge, I started to work on the geology collection by examining one small segment of the entire collection. The sample section of the collection contains several boxes of geological textbooks, maps, magazines, and several geological reports from the Department of Water and Power. One archaeological method I have learned from one of my previous archaeology classes is when archaeologists conduct their work in small areas or test pits in the archaeological site. I am applying this archaeological method to my geology collection sample because I can organize the geology collection into different categories and stacking the materials up into different piles. I stacked the geology textbooks and magazines into one pile, the DWP reports in another and continued organizing different geological materials in my small piles based on their similar physical attributes and written content. As I went through the small section of the geology collection, I realized that this collection belonged to an engineering geologist who worked for the DWP. I came up with that conclusion based on several geology textbooks and DWP memorandums I discovered while I was going through the sample

section. When I was about to leave the archaeology lab for the day, Dr. Snead showed up to asked me about my progress so far in the collection. I told him that I started organizing the collection in small sections but I needed help on how to organize the different. He told me that he will come up with some guidelines I can use to help me organize the geological collection and he will also accompany me to the anthropology office so that I can get my own access code to the archaeology lab before I leave campus.