It’s one thing to read about the past in books, it’s quite another to actually reach out and touch it.
Grade 10 Canadian history students at Westgate High School received a unique lesson on the First World War Monday with artifacts from the front lines.
“Today’s lesson is about kids being able to get their hands on some artifacts from World War One and trying to learn a little bit more about what it was like, and maybe internalize what some of the soldiers and nurses were feeling at the time,” said Gerald Pilot, a social sciences teacher at Westgate.
The Canadian War Museum in Ottawa sent the artifacts to the school as part of a program that provides historical items for classroom discussion and research.
Some of the items available to the students included signal flags, trench periscopes, gas masks, barbed wire, artillery casings, uniforms, helmets, photographs, and art.
“I hope the students will have a greater understanding and a greater appreciation of World War One and the soldiers that were there,” Pilot said.
“With the hands on aspect, it is a little different than the traditional education that we deliver in school and it makes them more excited about history.”
Pilot said that new technology provides students with a variety of learning experiences, but virtual learning can still not provide a student with the deafening noise the gas alarm makes in person, or the weight of a helmet worn by soldiers in the trenches.
Pilot is hoping that using hands-on artifacts in the lessons will allow the students to retain more information and make it easier to recall more details after the lesson is over.
“I’ve had this here for a week and kids remember what they looked at and why these things were made and the consequences,” he said.
Grade 10 students, Kaitlyn Smart and Emily Tenhave, said the lessons including the artifacts have been really interesting.
“It’s really cool that we have artifacts that we can actually look at,” Smart said.
“It’s cool to see what they went through,” Tenhave added. “But it’s also really sad, too.”
The hands-on aspect of the lesson has helped make history come alive for Smart and Tenhave, who admit that history can be a little boring when reading about it in books.
“It can be boring, but actually being able to see things and what it was actually like is more interesting,” Smart said.
“Before I came to grade 10, I really hated history, but it’s fun by bringing in all the stuff and it makes it a fun lesson,” Tenhave added.
