Education kits put history in Island students' hands

Sometimes it is a simple thing that can capture the attention of students while learning about history — like holding a small decorative spoon for collecting.

"When we tell them that people would go across Canada or go to Europe or another country and buy a spoon with a little representative of the country they'd been, they think 'Why would they buy that? That's so funny. What's the point of a spoon,'" said Emily MacIsaac, junior education officer with the P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation.

"There's so many more questions that we can think about to dig deeper and think about past lives or stories."

The spoon was part of pilot project through the foundation that created education kits filled with artifacts and lesson plans to be used in classrooms as part of an integrated curriculum.

MacIsaac was tasked with setting the kits up with relevant and touchable artifacts that could fire up kids' passion for history.

There are three educational kits for grades 1-3 available in each of the Island's counties. There are correlating lesson plans and a website that can help teachers and students better understand the artifacts they are holding.

"We have lots of things that students get to touch and fully understand the history of each item and get a sense of what history is like and get to handle that artifact and talk to their teachers about it," said MacIsaac.

"It brings a whole new level of history into the classroom."

Interactive approach

The kits contains artifacts like a moccasin, pocket watch, button hook or a decorative spoon — each with their own information guide.

Teachers are able to book the kit for a week inside their classroom.

It is just one of the three interactive educational approaches being used by the foundation.

"Currently we have the site visits where the students can come out to any of the provincial museum sites," said Jason MacNeil, education officer with P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation.

"And we have myself going into classrooms with trunks full of artifacts and generally we pass them around and kind of show the kids how to learn history from artifacts and the education kits really just allow us to do that without us being there."

MacNeil said the hands-on approach is a great way to get the students interested in learning more about the history around them.

"It's an amazing learning experience for them," said MacNeil. "If you read about history, it's one thing, but if you get to touch history, it's quite another thing. The tactile learning ... it leaves an impression."

The education kits originally rolled out in February but were quickly shelved in March due to the pandemic.

MacIsaac said it can be difficult to clean the artifacts with strong disinfectants that could damage the historic items. 

While the travelling cases are wiped down after each use, the artifacts themselves are put away for 14 days to ensure they are able to be handled once again by a new class of curious students.

But one teacher who did manage to take out the kits before the pandemic closed schools was able to provide feedback — including how popular the decorative spoon was to the students.

"It was a way to get history into the classroom and let students touch things and feel what it's like and learn stories and relate it back to their schoolwork," MacIsaac said.

MacNeil said they are working on expanding the initiative and plan to have kits available for grades 4-6 some time in the fall.

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