Owensboro Innovation Middle School is a project-based learning school that opened to sixth through eighth grade students this fall. To celebrate Veteran’s Day at the newly-created school, social studies and language arts facilitator Ashley Nash and OPS Youth Service Coordinator Amanda Hirtz created a way to not only meet the project-based needs of their students but also to provide a way to include veterans in the process of creating the final student projects.
Eighth-grade iMiddle students in Nash’s classes formed groups and then researched the five branches of the military, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, Desert Storm, Vietnam and the history of Veteran’s Day to create a final presentation to be shared with iMiddle students and veterans from the community.
While students were working on the project, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Third Class Tony Giacone, who is stationed in Owensboro, along with other Coast Guard members and veterans visited the classes and presented information to the students on what life and travel is like in the military and the educational opportunities available.
“Veterans are not honored as much as they should be,” Nash said. “This is something that needs to be done.”
Incorporating this information with their research, the students created information boards to present on Friday when community veterans were invited to view the final projects and were provided a spaghetti lunch with donations from Olive Garden and Pizza Hut. Students who had invited a family member who served in the military ate with them as well.
iMiddle student Ka Low said that the most exciting part of iMiddle is how students choose their project and design it themselves.
“I enjoy the freedom and being creative,” Low said.
Christian Crite, who worked with Low on a U.S. Coast Guard presentation, said that he enjoys being able to work in a group, because when working alone, he has a tendency to not be social.
Nash said that what the students said is why the project was a success. She said that project-based learning is not about what she presents to the students, but rather what they learn and research in the process.
“They aren’t just regurgitating what I say — it’s them,” Nash said.
Nash said that in only a couple of weeks of class time, students worked in “organized chaos” and that their end results exceeded her expectations.
Giacone, who stood with the students who researched the U.S. Coast Guard said that he enjoyed seeing the kids get involved and be proud of the work, something he noticed with each group.
Seventh-grade iMiddle students created the artwork that was hung around the presentations and down the halls, and the sixth-grade class wrote thank you notes to veterans that were handed out at Texas Roadhouse when the restaurant honored servicemen earlier in the week.
Hirtz said that a Veteran’s Day project will be incorporated into each graduating class’ social studies requirement.
“We wanted them to be involved, we wanted them to learn and because we are smaller, we had the opportunity to do this,” Hirtz said.
