- Curriculum Development for EcoKids
- A small team of my colleagues are working together to create a lesson plan that will be accessible to all teachers following the Ontario Curriculum. The lesson plan is based on intensive document research and aims to work environmental issues into the Grade 4 learning objectives for social studies. We are in the final stages of pulling together our research, our collection of primary sources for students to work with, our knowledge of the curriculum, and our teaching philosophies to produce a teaching tool that will both support Medieval history for Grade 4 and instill a great appreciation for what the environment has meant to humans in the past, present, and future.
- Heritage Designation Project
- I was assigned a property in the city of London, Ontario to research and assess in terms of whether or not this property should be designated as a heritage property under the Ontario Heritage Act. I presented my findings were presented to the London Advisory Committee on Heritage (LACH) in December of 2009 and I think the chances for designation are very high for my property. The 1874 Ontario Cottage located on Talbot Street, was the former home and studio of locally renound artist, Albert E. Templar and is already referred to by many in the community as "the historic Templar Cottage." Through this process, I am really appreciating local heritage and what a powerful force it can be in a community. I feel like the designation of this home is important to the city in which I'm currently residing. To complete the project, a small team of colleagues and I created an exhibit in the archives of the Western library that reflects the designation process and the historical riches of the Talbot Street area.
- J.P. Metras Sports Museum
- A collegue and I have been assigned to organize the maintenance of a sports collection associated with the University of Western Ontario. The collection and spirit of the sports museum has the potential to do great things for the UWO community, but it is desperately lacking attention, organization, and knowledge of proper museum protocol. We have been working toward setting up a cataloguing system as well as a complete collections management policy so that we can take a full inventory of what exactly is in the collection and be able to care for it properly. We have ambitions to start accessioning items into the official museum catalogue and work on making the museum functional in the UWO community. A team of colleagues has been working on this process in the second term of this year.
- Interactive Exhibit Design
- The second half of my digital history course is dedicated to creating some sort of interactive technology. While I've not really been focusing on one project in particular, I've managed to develop a number of skills over the semester. To see examples of what I've been working on, see the "Digital Projects" page of this website.
- Social Memory Heritage Minute
- One of the defining moments in medical history occurred right here in London, ON. This is, of course, the conception of of insulin by Dr. Frederick G. Banting. On the night of October 31, 1920, the young doctor sprung from his bed and scratched out twenty-five words in his personal diary about extracting insulin from the pancreas. It strikes me as rather odd that this momentary event has not already been celebrated by a Heritage Minute, considering Banting's international recognition as one of the greatest Canadians for the birth of an idea that changed the lives of millions around the world. To follow the development of this project and other information about Sir Frederick Banting, please see the "Summer Internship: Banting House" page of this website.
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