PAST was founded in 2000 by an international group of anthropologists and scientists who were determined to make ongoing scientific research across a broad spectrum of professions accessible to the public. Immediately, the PAST team began building partnerships and programs for seamless transdiciplinary education.
The initial work in 2001 included a partnership with the Zoo School from Lincoln, Nebraska, Yellowstone National Park and PAST. The year-long program featured the first Thermal River archaeological investigation on the Marshall Hotel in the Firehole River and culminated in an innovative web-story and a published book on the archaeology of the site garnering PAST the National Park Service John L. Cotter Award for Excellence in Park Service Archeology.
For the next five years, PAST continued to partner with both public and private organizations building educational programs like Riverboatin’ on the Red for Oklahoma’s Department of Education and SCRUNCH for the US Minerals Management Service. Both programs pivoted around ongoing research such as the discovery of a shipwreck in the Red River dating to Oklahoma’s early 1800’s settlement period and the effects of pressure while studying World War II shipwrecks in thousands of feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico. These program and project-based learning opportunites that transect scientific disciplines are the cornerstone of the PAST Foundation’s efforts.
In addition, PAST continued to partner with public agencies, universities, businesses, and industry building adult field study programs, anthropological research projects, and interactive websites. Years after their launch, websites for the Deep Wrecks Project and USS Arizona still have high volume visitation. The adult field schools have partnered with the Ohio State University (OSU), California State Parks, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Nebraska Wesleyan University, Oklahoma Historical Society, Indiana University, and East Carolina University providing participants with rigorous field experience and the partners with published reports and searchable databases.
In 2005, through a startup donation, PAST transitioned from a loose knit, project driven organization to a program-based fully operational federal non-profit. Continuously on the quest to partner with schools in piloting PAST programs, in 2006 the foundation formed a partnership with the Ohio State University, the Battelle Memorial Institute, the Central Ohio Educational Council, and Metro Early College and Demonstration High School (an innovative STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math school), located on the Ohio State University campus in Columbus, Ohio. Forming the PAST/Metro Program Design Center, PAST set about working with the faculty, students, and community partners to design transdisciplinary programs that pivot on global issues. The Design Center’s first program, Garbology, built on the work of Dr. William Rathje of the Stanford University Archaeology Center and pivoted on the very real, global issues of waste management. The project drew national attention and was awarded the 2007 Emerald Award for Excellence in Environmental Education. Since Garbology, graduate students from OSU departments and colleges across the nation have come to work at the Center.
Forensics in the Classroom, the Web of Life, and Growing America are examples of ongoing, doctoral research that were crafted into programs aimed at engaging young students in scientific methods and potential, lifelong careers.
Utilizing the guidance of a strategic plan, PAST has grown in the last several years on a number of other fronts. The PAST adult field schools continue to study known archaeological sites and collections assisting public agencies in better understanding, interpretation, and protection of America’s maritime heritage treasures, as well as forging ahead in areas of anthropology. PAST field schools helped California State Parks move forward in nominating the Gold Rush Era, shipwreck, Frolic on the Mendocino Coast for inclusion in California’s State Underwater Parks System. The 2005 through 2008 field schools assisted the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in better understanding and interpreting the nineteenth century, Sanctuary shipwrecks, Slobodna, Tonawanda, and Memenon Sanford.
In 2007, PAST Publications was created utilizing the print-on-demand process to enable students, professionals, programs, and organizations to publish scientific and educational work in a timely and cost effective way.
In 2007, after a year of working with STEM educational reform, PAST and the Battelle Center for Mathematics and Science Education Policy embarked on a combined, ethnographic and policy network study of the effectiveness of STEM education at Metro Early College and Demonstration High School. The interdisciplinary approach and findings of the study have added a new dimension to the national consideration of how STEM-based education is developed and scaled across the U.S.
Currently, PAST works with emerging STEM schools across the U.S. to build transdisciplinary programs for K-20 education and to better understand through anthropological ethnography, the underlying systems that make STEM successful. PAST continues to build learning programs for both high school age students and adults; the impact of these programs help drive their success.
PAST was honored in 2001 with the National Park Service’s John L. Cotter Award for Excellence in Park Service Archaeology, the 2007 Wiley Award for Excellence in Documentary Film, the 2007 Secretary of the Interior’s Conservation Collaborative Partnership Award, the 2007 National Oceanic Partner’s Program Award, the 2007 Emerald Award for Excellence in Environmental Education, and the 2007 Ohio State University Kellogg Award for Excellence in Experiential Learning. Individually, the PAST research team and its research associates have garnered Emmy Awards, the Society of Historical Archaeology’s Cotter Award for New Promising Professional, and the Ohio State University’s Graduate Student of the Year Award.
