In consultation with staff, students nominate a topic related to the course around which they can design a practical , replicable or experiential archaeological experiment. This involves a systematic approach informed by scientific method to formulate research aims, hypotheses, rationales, and experiment designs. Students video record themselves carrying out the experiment in a controlled environment. ARCS2010 students have cast bronze, created fire projectiles, and recreated ancient perfumes – supervised in the secure School of Social Science Archaeological laboratory, and Archaeology Teaching and Research Centre (ATARC) on UQ's St. Lucia campus. Students edit footage to produce a 10 minute presentation providing aims/hypotheses; rationale; literature review ; video evidence conducting the experiment itself; discussion and implications; conclusions and references. Students are tutored in audio-visual production and post-production techniques, and given access to specialist materials (are assigned from the course budget). Selected presentations are uploaded to a dedicated YouTube channel with some high ranking students going on to publish their experiments in academic journals, making this a well-suited technique for establishing student research portfolios or promoting media engagement. As this technique spans much of a standard course duration it is recommended to be more highly weighted at approximately 45% of the total course grade.

PLEASE NOTE: The academic integrity information displayed on this page is currently under review. Some examples and descriptions were developed before the widespread availability of generative AI tools and may not reflect current approaches to assessment security. When adapting an assessment idea, staff should consider how the design supports authorship, verifies student achievement of learning outcomes, and mitigates inappropriate use of AI and other forms of academic misconduct.