Coin Minting

This activity asks students to explore their identity by challenging what it means to be from a place and claim it as your own. For example, the Ancient Greeks likely would have identified themselves much stronger with their city-state rather than the term “Greek.” Students discussed the symbolism surrounding examples of ancient coinage, then were challenged to make their own coinage for their city or state. How do we boil down complex history into simple and identifiable symbolism? This activity also pairs well with the Myth Makers and Myth Madness activity, as students will have had practice identifying symbolism to represent complex ideas.

This activity is fairly quick and would likely only take an hour or two, however, if you plan to present on more examples of coinage, it can easily be made into a two-day activity.