Kids’ Guide Saves History

Celebration filled the room as dignitaries, family, sponsors and hardworking participants – adults and students – marked the completion of the Save Our History project.Celebration filled the room as dignitaries, family, sponsors and hardworking participants – adults and students – marked the completion of the Save Our History project.

The occasion was the official unveiling of a printed booklet, Lowell’s Acre Activity Trail – Walking Back in Time in Our Neighborhood, written entirely by eighth-grade students from the Bartlett Middle School and designed with the help of Mary Lou Hubbell, director of publications at UMass Lowell. A $10,000 grant from the History Channel and the American Association for State and Local History funded the project, a joint effort of the Tsongas Industrial History Center, the Lowell National Park and the Bartlett School. The celebration was sponsored by Comcast.

The History Channel awarded the project an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington DC, to compete for a national prize. From left, Linda Willis, Neary Mam, Vania Perez and Mark Souza will represent their colleagues.

The students learned a lot, but so did the adults. As teacher Steven Cyr remarked, “I learned never to underestimate the ability and enthusiasm of students when they have something worthwhile to do. We take great pride in their achievement.”

Neighborhood history came to life for the group of about 20 eighth graders. Taking a fresh look at familiar places, the students researched the history of their neighborhood, known as the Acre – an area at the heart of the industrial history and successive waves of immigration in Lowell.

“The Bartlett is a neighborhood school and many of the students walk to school,” says Sheila Kirschbaum, school liaison at the Center. “They know the places, but now they’ve discovered the historical value of what is familiar to them. By becoming engaged with the history of neighborhood sites, they are more likely as adults to protect and preserve and advocate for their heritage.”
           
At the twice-weekly after-school sessions, the students nominated sites they guessed to be historically significant. Teams of about five researched their sites, from the earliest times, through transitional years of immigration and into current times.

The Acre is rich in history and, broadly speaking, runs from the Pawtucket Falls and the Pawtucket Canal to the mills on the edge of downtown. Industry in Lowell was planned, but residential areas were not, so as immigrant workers and families arrived from Ireland, they settled around their parish church, St. Patrick’s. After the Irish, the Acre has been predominantly Greek, then Hispanic and Southeast Asian.
           
The staff helped out with information and arrangements for visits and interviews. Kirschbaum and Sheli Turocy at the Tsongas Center, Bartlett School teachers Estelle Chaput and Steve Cyr and instructional specialist Linda Willis, and Amy Glowacki, an interpretation ranger with the National Park, comprised the project staff.
           
The students themselves did all the work. As they wrote in the opening of the guide, “During the past two months students at the Bartlett School were given a wonderful opportunity by the History Channel to explore the history of the Acre. We have created this wonderful activity booklet including a map of our Acre neighborhood with numbered sites, photographs, activities and questions.”
           
At the celebration, students displayed posters of their work, along with a large timeline covering 250 years of history in the area. Nostalgia touched the event, as the Bartlett School students and staff will move to merge with the Stoklosa Middle School next school year.

The Lowell Save Our History project received yet another of excellence from The History Channel: the award of an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for a team of two students and two teachers, to compete with other Save Our History projects for a $10,000 national prize.

As students showed off their work and the glossy activity trail guide, it was clear that these students were, all, already winners.