Lewiston, Maine
March 2000
Project Overview
Lewiston is an urban community in the heart of central Maine. It is the second largest city with a population of approximately 36,830. The city covers an area of 35 square miles.
Lewiston residents enjoy four seasons. The average January temperature is 19ºF and the average July temperature is 79ºF. The first frost is expected around mid-October and the last frost is usually in mid-May.
Over the last century Lewiston has undergone many changes, growing from a small community into a bustling industrial community. With the decline of the textile industry, beginning in the 1960's, Lewiston suffered a decline of prosperity. Today, Lewiston is once again growing. New businesses are renovating the large mills that were built during the peak of the industrial revolution, helping Lewiston regain a strong economy while maintaining its historical landmarks.
3. Summary of Our Project
While reorganizing and adding Internet sites to her unit on Lewiston last summer, Mrs. Letourneau could fine few materials written at a third grade reading level. This prompted her to create a web page about Lewiston for her students. The CyberFair 2000 Project provided a perfect opportunity to take this idea further and to have Lewiston students to create their own web site on Lewiston, written by the children of Lewiston, for other children of Lewiston. It is designed to be "kid" friendly, written in language that other children can easily read and enjoy. The third graders searched the Internet; read books, newspapers, and pamphlets; made phone calls; took photos; visited businesses; and interviewed family members and local businessmen. Then they compiled their information creating web pages on their topics. The goal was to create a web page that the children of Lewiston could easily read, learn from, and enjoy.
Currently, our school's Internet connection is provided via a LAN connection to a 56K Frad to the Maine State Library Network. All the classrooms in our school have Internet connections.
This section explains how your project addressed the project elements found in the
CyberFair Assignment to Schools.1) How did your activities and research for this International School CyberFair project support your required coursework and curriculum requirements?
The State of Maine's Learning Results require that all third grade students develop historical knowledge of major events, people, and enduring themes in Maine, their local community (Lewiston), and throughout the world. The CyberFair project provided an interesting and motivating way to cover the existing curriculum requirements.
This project extended beyond the required Social Studies needs. It included developing communication and research skills, organizing ideas and photos with text; editing; writing; designing; and publishing skills. All of these are required curriculum outcomes under the Maine Learning Results. All of these skills were necessary for students to create their web page. In fact it would be a very lengthy list if all curriculum skills incorporated in the CyberFair project were listed.
The most exciting aspect of this project was that students practiced and mastered so many skills while enjoying themselves. The idea of restating research in their own words was very difficult for these eight-and-nine-year-old students. For them, copying verbatim was writing their own work. They have learned a lot about report writing, as well as giving credit where it is due. The students have taken great pride in their work and are excited about seeing their work published on the Internet.
2) What information tools and technologies did you use to complete your CyberFair project?
Our project required us to walk to Bookland, a local bookstore, to use their computer room. This allowed the entire class to do simultaneous research on individual topics. This served as a computer lab for our class, since our school has none. In addition to Internet research we used the computers to create out the web pages. Every student typed his or her report independently of the teacher. Various word-processing programs were used to accomplish this task. It took several weeks for all the work to be typed, revised, and edited. Once this was accomplished, a Bates student volunteer helped the students copy and paste their work into Microsoft Word, scan and insert images, and save as an HTML file. Mr. Douglas LeBlanc, owner of Future Computing generously donated software for the computer. Without Microsoft Office 98, converting to HTML would have been a more difficult task.
Parents rallied around this project, carting students to the city library, the Bates College Library, local historical museums, and to businesses; taking photos, digging up family photos, scanning photos; and much much more. The parents were very enthusiastic and supportive throughout this project. They spoke with their employers and scheduled interviews with their employers.
Dr. Meldrum, a psychologist who was in our class to work with a student and saw the project on the blackboard, volunteered historical information. His mother is owner of one of the historical mills, Libbey Mill, in our community. Dr. Meldrum set up a phone interview between his mother and the student.
Students used cameras and took many of the photos themselves. They phoned for informational brochures from home and sometimes from school during our library time. Students used whatever technology they had available to them in order to complete their project.
3) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.
Students behaved in a very "grown-up" professional manner. They practiced questions to be asked during the interviews. Local businessmen were so impressed with students that they discussed our class project at a luncheon. Businessmen who were at the luncheon contacted us at school and offered information on topics. Local businessmen took time to call and volunteer to do phone interviews with students. This was amazing.
Students learned to communicate with members of their community. Community members were charmed by these students and by their enthusiasm to learn about the place they call home.
4) What has been the impact of your project on your community?
This project is displayed in paper form on the hall bulletin board in our school. Blue yarn links each student's individual web page to the project page. Several school board members have commented on the paper web page, and have asked for the URL to our site when it is posted.
An article and photo about our class creating web pages for the International CyberFair 2000 Project was published in the local Educational Insert of the Lewiston Sun Journal. In addition to this, local businessmen have called the school to volunteer information about topics.
A few businesses are also involved in the process of evaluating the students' projects for accuracy.
5) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?
This project was truly a cooperative venture between school-family-community. Thank You's to all:
The list of all the people who volunteered to help these students is extensive. Excitement and enthusiasm for the project was contagious, and people just came forward to lend a helping hand. The donation of software was critical to the entire project and we cannot thank Mr. LeBlanc enough for his generosity. Our thanks also go to Mr. Julias, Technology Administrator, who came in without delay to install the software, and to Ms. Brackett, Technology Administrator, who arranged for us post the final project on the school system's server. Without the cooperation of all of these people and the continuous support of parents and school staff, this would not have been possible.
6) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises
The children discovered many new facts about their community and about their families. One student learned that his family's dairy had been a hotel at one time. Another student marveled that Lewiston once had an amusement park on an island, and a suspension bridge connecting the city to the park. Another student learned that Lewiston once had a trolley. Students were fascinated to hear about the Stanley Steamer and how a steam driven car was once manufactured in what is now the home of the local newspaper. So many little "Did you know?" facts surfaced that this became a daily part of our classroom routine.
Students were eager to share their new discoveries. So many photos were taken that students are now creating a Power Point Presentation as a mini-tour of the city. Another group of students is preparing a Power Point Trivia presentation of all of the "Did you know?" facts that were discovered in class.
The students also searched for other cities in the United States named Lewiston. Everyone was amazed to discover eight Lewiston throughout the United States. We created a search page entitled Your Home, My Home, Our Home -Lewiston and placed it on our classroom's Social Studies page. Students are now creating a database comparing and contrasting all the different Lewistons.
This project continues to grow in new directions developing students into life-long learners that are self-motivated!