A cyberspace world’s fair

Starting this semester, area elementary and middle school students can learn how to create their own history lessons on the Internet. 

The project is called “The Turn of a Century.” It’s sponsored by the E. Desmond Lee Technology and Learning Center at University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL). 

One objective is to show youngsters how to use the Internet to do historical research. Another is to teach them how to put their findings into webpages that can be shared with others.

Each semester, students will study different time periods in the 20th Century. This fall, the decades being studied are 1900-1910 and 1910-1920. 

By the end of the Fall 2002 Semester, students will have studied all decades of the 20th Century. Then, in the next year, they’ll create projects that look ahead into the 21st Century. 

By the spring of 2004, all these projects will be submitted for display in a 2004 Cyberspace World’s Fair. That year marks the 100th anniversary of the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.

Carl Hoagland is the director of “The Turn of a Century” program. The UMSL professor said past worlds fairs were big construction projects in different cities around the world. People traveled long distances to see large exhibits featuring the best examples of the past and inventions for the future.

 For instance, the 1904 World’s Fair involved building many huge pavilions sponsored by foreign countries. The fairgrounds covered much of what is now Forest Park.

“With the advent of television--and now the internet--those physical world’s fairs are no longer the best way to look to the past or future. Our goal is to create a virtual World’s Fair in cyberspace,” Hoagland said. 

At the 2004 Cyberspace World’s Fair, students will use computers to look at the 20th Century and also into the 21st Century right in their classrooms and homes, he said.

By 2004, Hoagland expects to have thousands of student-created history lessons. 

Also, the program will give teachers and students an organized way to create more history lessons in future years. 

For instance, each history project will be created using the same system. First, the student or class picks a subject from a specific time period. Someone might chose to look into the history of the 1904 World’s Fair. That’s in this semester’s time period, 1900-1920.

The project instructions then point out internet resources where you can find information for your project. The instructions also show how to create a webpage for display of the information. 

Hoagland points out that each project is more than just gathering facts. Students must use “critical thinking.” In other words, the youngsters are urged to find out what the historical facts mean. “Each activity requires students to demonstrate the ability to use information, not just re-tell it,” he said.

Two St. Louis area teachers are helping Hoagland. They are Cheryl Davis of the Hazelwood School District and Denise Peters from Wentzville. They will explain the project to other teachers who want their students to participate. 

Teachers and students who want to find out more about “The Turn of a Century” project can log on to UMSL’s Technology Center’s website at http://www.umsl.edu/~tlc/century/homepage.htm.

To register to participate in the “Century” project, you can e-mail Professor Hoagland at: hoagland@umsl.edu.