Our Story
Back to the Halifax Explosion Home

But you really need to also read the grade 4 story to get the whole picture!

The Halifax Explosion 

1. http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/shanson/hfx%20explosion/halifaxexplosionhome.htm
2. School: Crichton Park School (www.cps.ednet.ns.ca)
   District: Halifax Regional School Board
   City: Dartmouth
   Province/ Territory: Nova Scotia
   Email: shanson@staff.ednet.ns.ca
               cps@staff.ednet.ns.ca
3. Teachers: Shelayne Hanson
4. Classes participating: Grade 4
5. Number of students who worked on this project? 14
6. Ages of students: 9-10
7. Community Members: Ms. Cavell Hudson, Maritime Museum of the Atlantic

Project Overview

1. We entered our website in GrassRoots Communities@ca Category:
   Our Living Past/Our local history and events
   
2. Description of our school:
   Crichton Park School is a small elementary school in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.  There are approximately 220 students in attendance.  There is one multi-age class for grade four and five students, the grade fours from that class produced this site.  
3. Summary of our project:
   The Grade Four students have created a website based on the Halifax Explosion for several reasons.  Although the class did some work on this historical event in our community, building this site allowed them the opportunity to learn even more about it.  Doing the site also allowed them the chance to work as a team, separate from the grade Five students in the class, and further develop their technology/web skills
4. Awards and Recognitions:
   We have received a grant from Grassroots to develop this site.

Project Reflection

1. How did the project goals relate to your curriculum?

   The project fully supports the curriculum outcomes/objectives for the Atlantic Canada Curriculum Guide for Language Arts and Social Studies. The project fully incorporates technology in the classroom and supports the technolgy outcomes for elementary grades and beyond. The project fully supports the Nova Scotia Department of Education's Public School Programs Principles of Learning as well as address and meet requirements for all of its Essential Graduation Learnings.

2. What information technology tools did you use to create your website?
   
   The Grade Four students used scanners, digital cameras, Internet searches, videos, books, Microsoft Word, Paint, Hyperstudio, FrontPage Express, and Microsoft FrontPage.  The site was finally published/uploaded to the web using  Microsoft FrontPage.  Most of these programs and materials have been purchased by the school to support projects such as this.

    

3. How did you connect with your community?
   
   The Grade Four students visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax to begin their unit work.  We have had  a professional artist in to help create interpretations of the event, a parent volunteer who is developing a screenplay on the Halifax Explosion met often with the group, books from local authors were explored, and classmates from Grade Five contributed some ideas and suggestions.

    

4. What has been the impact of the project on students and teachers?
   
   The children in Grade Four welcomed the opportunity to work independently from their older classmates and with minimal teacher supervision/assistance.  They quickly learned, however, the need for organization and fair delegation of responsibilities.  Although they truly appreciated the assistance of others, as well as the support of the museum and volunteers, they truly felt a sense of personal accomplishment at their own work when the site was finally published.  They certainly gained an appreciation for the work that goes into a major body of research, as well as learning some new technology skills that they will be able to apply to their own sites.

    

5. What has been the impact of the project on your community?
   
   Because our site is linked to the school site which receives thousands of visitors a year, we are anticipating the opportunity to teach a lot of people about this event.  We are also going to register the site with the children's search engine 'Yahooligans'.  The school will benefit from some of the GrassRoots money we have been awarded for doing the site, as we will be using some of it for purchasing software.   We are also anticipating connecting in the very near future with another classroom in our community that has done work on the Halifax Explosion and linking our two sites together to give a more 'complete' picture of the event from a Halifax and Dartmouth perspective.  As always, our parents, school mates and other teachers were very supportive and impressed with our efforts.
   
6. What were the challenges in doing this project?
   
   Challenges
   • finding class time to work on the site
   • getting everyone to do their fair share
   • keeping up interest after frustrating setbacks, such as lost discs, computer glitches, etc.

   Ideas for others when doing this work

   • Keep all of your information in one area
   • Make a plan and stick to it
   • Do all of your research first, then design your pages
   • Upload pages as they are completed to see what they will look like on line
   • Write a list of who is doing what and check things off as they get done

    

7. What are your future website plans?
   
   The page will be updated as the year goes on in terms of feedback we get from going through the Communities@ca competition process.  Because the information is essentially static, no new information is expected to be added after this year.  Once the academic year is over the site will remain as a 'permanent' link on the school's home page

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