Many UK scuba divers interested in maritime archaeology train with the Nautical Archaeology Society, and the NAS has now matched a £46,000 grant from Historic England’s Covid-19 emergency fund to update the three courses on its e-learning platform – and develop two new ones.
The three revised and extended courses, Maritime, Underwater and Coastal & Foreshore Archaeology, are to be joined by the two more specialist programmes by the end of the year. These will cover Monitoring Archaeological Sites through Photography & Photogrammetry, and Cannon Research & Recording, with the online training culminating in practical skills sessions in both cases.
“This has been the perfect time to be expanding the variety of online courses within our educational programme,” said NAS chief executive Mark Beattie Edwards. “Lockdown restrictions around the world have meant that face-to-face courses have become impossible to offer, so being able to learn new skills from home has become the new normal.”
“By redeveloping our existing e-learning courses we’ll be able to attract a new audience, which will create a greater team of citizen-scientists to monitor and protect our threatened maritime heritage,” added education manager Peta Knott. “The NAS’s e-learning programme first developed in 2013 had served us well but was a little dated.”
The Portsmouth-based NAS says it has also worked with HE’s Disability Network to ensure that the courses are fully accessible to students with visual or hearing impairments.
