Slice of Life

Slice of Life is a story of how a local artifact can get students and the wider community to talk about their history and reflect on the changes over the past century locally and globally.

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It started with a 2 inch thick slice of tree from a towering pine, cut down outside Pope Memorial Elementary School in the town of Bury.  Students counted the rings and determined the age (109 years to be exact).

Next, their teacher Jocelyn Bennett read a book about a thousand year old tree and what had happened during that time period.  French teacher Celine Carbonneau asked her students to bring in artifacts from that period and wrote about is in French, later presenting to the community.  This inspired the students and community to research the history of the town and vote on the most significant town and world events over the past 109 years.

You can see pictures and read more about the project and how the community got involved in an entertaining article by Rachel Garber in The Record.
Inspiration can be found in the strangest places.

The Living Map Project

The Living Map Project

Pierre Elliott Trudeau Elementary School (PETES)

Lisa Howell

In 2013, Students in Ms. Howell’s Elementary Cycle 3 class decided to build cultural bridges and connect the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Elementary School (PETES) community with the diverse community that surrounds them. The student population largely comes from areas out of the immediate vicinity, which means that students do not have many links to the surroundings.

"Our Living Map: Voices from our community" project is an inter-generational, intercultural, artistic and linguistic endeavour that  builds relationships with neighbours and connect with the larger community. By building stronger connections, there is a hope that misunderstandings or incidents of vandalism of school property will be less prevalent.  

The students met and heard the stories of their neighbours: the Larsh Home for adults with intellectual disabilities down the street; the Portuguese Church around the corner; a community centre that serves the needs of families that live in the social housing project that borders the school grounds and the neighbours who live across the street who know the stories of our schools history.

The end result was a living 3D sculptural map as well as a book that features the writing and photography works of student’s interactions with the members of the community. You can download a document the class produced here.

You can read more about the project by clicking here.

Ms. Howell has a great website which features many of her class projects. It's well worth a visit - http://room224.yolasite.com/