OSWEGO, NY – Famous persons packed the Wiegand International Space Station.
Once again, Frederick Leighton Elementary fifth grade teacher Tom Wiegand brought history to life as famous persons from today and yesterday filled his “space station.”
Visitors arrived at the station and after stepping through the portal traveled through history.
Wiegand had brought excitement to learning and without the students even realizing it, he covers social studies, technology, and English Language Arts areas of reading and writing.
The veteran teacher said, “This is the 10th year of the wax museum. The students always amaze me with their depiction of their character. They were required to write a biographical essay using a Document Based Questioning format charts and a DBQ writing structure. They then had to determine key details to display in front of their character. It is a lot of work, but the students see the results of it and are excited to show what they have done.”
Wiegand tells the visitors, “You may think you see the figures moving, but it is just the space station moving.”
The self-control of the students is amazing as they remain nearly completely motionless throughout the lengthy periods.
There were many new “persons” in this exhibit as students displayed a variety of interests.
The roster of guests included Colin Powell (Cameron Adams), Mary Jemison (Gillian Clark), the first female police officer Lola Baldwin (Zoe Clark), Deborah Gannon (Destiny Cruzado), Henry Ford (Justin DeGregorio), Albert Einstein (Maverick Dorgan), Rosa Parks (Sierra Ermini), Mohandas Gandhi (Billy Greene), Johnny Appleseed (Cristobal Hernandez), Susan B. Anthony (Mikelia Hurd), the first biker around the world Annie Londonderry (Krista Kraft), Christopher Columbus (Brian Lebron), John Phillip Sousa (Ben McPherson), Betsy Ross (Audreyonna Munoz), Maya Angelou (Alysah Perez), Cleopatra (Ivy Perry), General George Patton (Jason Proud), Nikola Tesla (Joey Pulver), Leif Erikson (George Rice), Helen Keller (Desa Richards), Thomas Edison (Vlad Volkov), Leonardo DaVinci (Isaiah Wiseman), and naturalist Dian Fossey.
As always the students gain a genuine learning experience by becoming immersed in a historical character.
Mr. Wiegand, this was the best wax museum ever!!! Super job- a lot of work went into this project, as usual!
What a great project! These kind of teachers encourage learning!