EUGENE SCHOOL DISTRICT

Local history goes high-tech

Camas Ridge students create a lasting project that preserves Eugenes past
March 6, 2013

Lillian Paschall (from left), McKenzie Carrier, Evan Henderson and Jessie McCann look over their historical vignette project at Camas Ridge Elementary School in Eugene. (Brian Davies/The Register-Guard)

BY SUSAN PALMER The Register-Guard

PUBLISHED: 12:00 A.M., MARCH 6

When Donna DuBois fourth- and fifth-grade students started their class projects last year at Camas Ridge Elementary School in south Eugene, the kids did not initially grasp that their efforts would spark such interest beyond the classroom. But when Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy showed up to learn more about it, they realized this wasnt an ordinary assignment, the kind thats heavy on personal effort, then graded by a teacher, tucked away and forgotten. This project has staying power. The students selected 20 downtown sites, researched their historical significance, tracked down old photos, then wrote a script and married the images with voice recordings that tell a succinct story of the city, its present and its past. The digital stories, each just a couple of minutes long, are available on the Internet, but the kids went one better than that. They created QR, or quick response tags barcodes for smartphones that will allow people instant access to the historical information just by holding their phone up to the barcode image.

In coming weeks, thanks to the help of local businesses, signs will be appearing at the 20 historical places, from the train station to the post office and the Fifth Street Public Market. The signs will have the QR tags so people doing walking tours will be able to instantly see the historic pictures and hear the students descriptions. Curious about the Smeed Hotel? The students combined old pictures with great snippets about the Willamette Street buildings history, including the fact that Smeed at one point added an E to the end of the hotel name to make it look fancier before thinking better of it and dropping it. And the Shelton McMurphy Johnson house built in 1888? The digital story mentions Alberta Shelton, who grew up in the house and was described in a newspaper article in 1895 as Eugenes first lady cyclist. Each story teases to another one. The historic train station narrative suggests viewers check out the downtown post office story, where they will learn who owned the first Cadillac in Lane County. The students had help on the project from David Funk of Bell & Funk Research, Chris Meeker of the Imagine Group, Travel Lane County, the city of Eugene and the Lane County Historical Society. DuBois, their teacher, came up with the idea, thanks to inspiration from the New Learning Institutes Model Classroom program at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C, which provided ongoing advice along the way. Their whole theme is using technology in this community-based service way to give students meaningful work, DuBois said. Several of the students involved in creating the digital stories have been asked to talk about their efforts, last week at an open house at Camas Ridge and the month before at a digital learning day at Madison Middle School. For Evan Henderson, 10, the fun was in finding the historic photographs, and uncovering fascinating bits of Eugene history. For example, in one record of the city written by Jonathan Pincus, Evan discovered that he and his classmates werent the first students to come up with a helpful downtown project. Back in 1887, Eugene students had trouble delivering gift baskets to needy families because the city streets had no street signs. According to Pincus, the students salvaged tin cans, painted them white and then printed street names on them in black, creating the citys first street signs. That was so cool, Evan said. For student Jessie McCann, 11, the fun came in doing the voiceovers. And for McKenzie Carrier, 10, it was the group involvement. It felt to me like our whole class was part of this thing and it felt really special that we were the ones who were able to do it, she said.

DIGITAL STORIES
Videos are finished, but signs are still in progress Places highlighted: Fifth Street Public Market, Alpha Tau Omega House, Electric Station, Eugene Fire Station, Eugene Public Library, Eugene Skinner statue, downtown train station, Farmers Market, Farmers Union, First Christian Church, Ken Kesey statue, Lane Transit District station, McDonald Theatre, U.S. Post Office, Saturday Market, Smeed Hotel, Shelton Johnson McMurphy House, the Kiva, Tiffany Building, Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza Online: http://rgne.ws/12uen3C