Ancient coins for Education

I ran across an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review titled, Coin collection brings history to life.

I have found that to be true. When you can hold something in your hand that was used by people hundreds if not thousands of years ago, you feel a kinship with history. It has always intrigued me to think about where the coins in my collection have been since they were minted. If we only had some way of finding out.

Poerio, a third-grade teacher at St. Louise de Marillac School in Upper St. Clair, has a collection of a couple hundred coins, including over 100 ancient coins. Her coins span from as early as 400 BC to modern coins. The collection started when she wanted to introduce Latin lessons to her class three years ago.

“I just thought it was really interesting,” Poerio says. “The reverence kids have for these coins. Something they hold in their hand is 2000 years old.”

Poerio was drawn into the coin collecting world after searching the Internet for ancient coins with Latin inscriptions. That brought her to an organization known as Ancient Coins for Education.

Ancient Coins for Education is a nonprofit organization that provides 4th century AD Roman coins to classrooms for cleaning and attribution.

“The kids really enjoy it,” Poerio says. “It’s just that they prepared it themselves, and they get to keep it.”