[blacksmith working]
>>See, now I got it
spread out even more.
>>Narrator: These third graders in
Fairfield, California are helping
to preserve a vanishing
piece of local history.
>>Student: How long
did you have to train
like for to be a real blacksmith?
>>Blacksmith: You can learn basic
blacksmithing in about six months.
>>Narrator: Students at Tolenas
Elementary School made several field
trips to document the
history and resources
of nearby Suisun Marsh
and Rush Ranch.
>>Okay. Good.
>>Narrator: They plan to share their
findings online with classrooms
across the country with what teacher,
Eva calls, The Geo-Literacy Project.
>>We wanted to do something where
could take our county, our history,
our geology, our geography
and encourage students
to become literate in it.
>>Narrator: All of the content
on the Geo-Literacy webpage grew
out of self-directed inquiry
by La Mar's third graders.
>>Eva: We started with
an essential question
which is why was the preservation
of Rush Ranch important?
>>The students picked the
area they wanted to research.
They drove their own projects.
The groups were looking at specific
plants and specific animals.
>>Woman: That's called
Miner's Lettuce.
I don't know if it has a smell.
>>Student: And it smells a tiny bit.
>>Eva: We're just looking at
specific Native American issues.
>>Man: Obsidian, very good.
>>Student: They used that as a knife.
>>Eva: The blacksmith shop and
then the history of Rush Ranch
from pre-Columbian
all the way up to now.
So our students became the authors,
the photographers, the videographers,
and the local historians working
with the high school
students and historians.
>>Teacher: Tule is a wonderful
material that the Indians used
and the Indians made tule ducks.
I made this-
>>Eva: We realized that
we had some local experts.
A retired teacher named
Barbara Van Putten
who had all these wonderful
materials.
She had original arrowheads,
she had original baskets
and you can't take those into every
classroom, so my students invited her
to come into class and
bring all her Indian tools
that she had and artifacts.
>>Barbara Van Putten: You're not
going to pull this apart, good.
Thank you.
>>Narrator: Fairfield High School
students helped the third-graders
produce object rotations
by photographing artifacts
from different angles to create a
three-dimensional digital image.
>>Eva: My students were the
experts with the materials
with the objects being photographed,
and the high-schoolers were
the experts with the equipment.
>>Student: Okay, one more picture.
>>Eva: It was a very happy
meeting of the minds.
>>Jennifer: See you can see what
you're going to take a picture of.
>>Narrator: Members of Armijo High
School's technology club offered
to capture video clips and virtual
reality stills for the webpage.
>>Jennifer: Alright, now I'm working
on the virtual tour for Rush Ranch.
And basically the project will go
on their website and I'm trying
to make the highest
quality panorama that I can
with the footage that I took.
>>Eva: I'm looking for
something that you learned
and something that was amazing.
>>Narrator: La Mar believes that
by studying their local history,
students can taste the
joy of lifelong learning.
>>Student: It might have been chasing
like a salt marsh harvest mouse
or something because it showed like
the footprints heading to the hill
as if it were chasing something.
>>All of you know what
this is, right?
>>Student: Yeah, that's
the horn of the...
>>Eva: They developed
a love for history.
They look back at choices that were
made historically and they realize
that this has a meaning to our lives
and that's what you really hope
as a teacher that you can get them
to understand is what they're
learning now does have a meaning.
It's not just a hoop
they jump through.
They develop a love for learning.
>>Narrator: Using the
Fairfield webpage
as a template La Mar hopes other
communities will make their own
Geo-Literacy sites.
>>Eva: Part of this
project is the hope
that we can take students anywhere
in this country that we are studying
and go to that community's
Geo-Literacy site and look
at their history, look at their
topography, look at their geology.
>>And some of them did like
the same things as we did,
we could learn different
facts off of them,
and like- Maybe add it to their-
>>Ours, and show everyone
what all of us have learned
from off of each other, Yeah.
>>For more information on what works
in public education
go to edutopia.org
