Europe
GalleryLandstuhl students present Civil War projects
Stars and Stripes
May 9, 2013
Raelin Bretzke, 9, examines a Lego construction depicting Burnside's Bridge, which played a major role in the Civil War Battle of Antietam. Confederate soldiers held the bridge for several hours before Union soldiers, led by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, seized it. Ripken Stork, an eighth-grader at Landstuhl Elementary/Middle School, built the model as part of his class' examination of the war. For their projects, other students looked at various aspects of the war, such as weaponry, diseases and major battles. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
Raelin Bretzke, 9, examines a Lego construction depicting Burnside's Bridge, which played a major role in the Civil War Battle of Antietam. Confederate soldiers held the bridge for several hours before Union soldiers, led by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, seized it. Ripken Stork, an eighth-grader at Landstuhl Elementary/Middle School, built the model as part of his class' examination of the war. For their projects, other students looked at various aspects of the war, such as weaponry, diseases and major battles. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
Mark Fairchild, an Advanced Placement U.S. history teacher at Kaiserslautern High School and collector of American military uniforms and equipment, shows off a bayonet during a Civil War event Tuesday at Landstuhl Elementary/Middle School in Germany. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
Larry Roche brought his collection of U.S. Civil War bullets, musket rounds and other items found on battlefields in the U.S. and Europe to display at a Civil War event held Tuesday evening at Landstuhl Elementary/Middle School in Germany. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
Joseph Begin, an eighth-grade pupil at Landstuhl Elementary/Middle School in Germany, talks about a diorama he and two classmates created to depict the siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
LANDSTUHL, Germany — At Landstuhl Elementary/Middle School, eighth-grade pupils displayed and explained projects they’d done on the U.S. Civil War this week.
The work was all part of a “project-based learning” assignment in which the students came up with their own questions, then had to research in order to come up with answers.
Their projects, which included dioramas, computer-based slide shows and various other displays, were derived from that research and presented Tuesday to other classes and the greater Kaiserslautern Military Community, which pitched in with additional historical materials and expertise.