Byron Center — A scientist, a civil rights activist and a musician walk into a school gym, not to tell jokes, but to teach others about their lives and legacies.
Heritage Elementary recently hosted a living wax museum during the final week of school, as a culmination of a multi-faceted research project.
Third-graders chose influential figures of the past and present, known for their accomplishments in a wide variety of career fields and time periods.
Each student dressed as their “wax figure,” equipped with a paper-and-tape or marker-drawn button on their hand that visitors would push to initiate the biographical speeches.
Standing next to her classmate Raelyn Maleport as primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall, third-grader Penny Wassenaar presented on WNBA basketball star Caitlyn Clark, whose Midwestern roots grew her collegiate career with the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Sitting across from Bauer Szot dressed as Albert Einstein, third-grader Margaret Eardley presented as Marie Curie, a physicist and chemist who often dressed in black despite her favorite color being pink.
Teacher Erica Abel explained how students from all three third-grade classes were tasked to choose a famous individual to research, write about and represent in the wax museum.
“They took notes from their reading and had to write a full and abbreviated biography about their person, a timeline of major events from their life and some interesting facts about them,” she said.
The project also involved an art class collaboration. During their weekly special, students drew self portraits of their figures to include on their presentation poster.
“This is such a confidence boost for students, and good for those who need an extra push,” Abel said. “It covers so many content areas, and I’m always so impressed with their costumes. They just get into it.”
According to the trio of third-grade teachers, Anne Frank was a popular choice amongst their students’ requests. There could not be duplicate presentations in each class, so third-grader Mabel Maxwell consulted her big sister for other ideas.
“When I didn’t get Anne Frank, I researched online with my older sister to find someone like Anne Frank,” she said.
Mabel discovered a French Jewish woman named Hélène Berr, who also documented her life in a diary during the Nazi occupation of France and died from typhus in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
“She’s considered the ‘French Anne Frank,’ and I thought she was pretty interesting,” Mabel said. “It was harder to find books about her, so my teacher helped me, and I used the internet to find out more about her and her journal.”
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