UNews - Ashley Henrickson

U of L students create innovative programming for Galt Museum

caroline.zentner — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 17:51:41 +0000

Two ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge students completing Applied Studies courses have developed unique tools to help educate school children about local history.

Ashley Henrickson (MA ’19), museum educator at the Galt Museum & Archives, and Dr. Kristine Alexander, associate professor of history and Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Child and Youth Studies, supervised LaRae Smith and Benjamin Weistra, both Education students, as they completed Applied Studies courses last semester. Their projects involved working with museum staff to research and produce new educational programming for school groups visiting the Galt.

“Recent scholarship about teaching and learning in higher education has shown that the opportunity to work on community-engaged research projects produces enormous gains in terms of student engagement and retention,” says Alexander. “The U of L’s Applied Studies program is a model in this respect, and it has been a real pleasure to be able to watch Ashley, LaRae and Ben work together to connect historical research, cutting-edge technologies and museum education.”

From left to right are Dr. Kristine Alexander, Ashley Henrickson, LaRae Smith and Benjamin Weistra.

Smith’s project, sponsored by Farm Credit Canada, was about the Great Depression in southern Alberta. Smith, with guidance from Henrickson, developed a simulation that’s like a board game.

“The game, which is designed for Grade 5, is played in a number of rounds and, in each round, students choose what crops to plant and which agricultural techniques to implement,” says Henrickson. “The students analyze newspaper articles and photographs from the 1930s to help inform their choices. Their farms are then hit by a number of travesties which affected Alberta farmers, including drought, grasshoppers and low market prices. Finally, the emotional reality of life in the Great Depression is driven home by sharing the stories of local families who lived through the period. LaRae collected these stories through oral history interviews.”

“As the ideas for this simulation started flowing and it began to take shape, I couldn’t help but get increasingly excited for the launch of this program,” says Smith. “I can’t wait for students to be able to come and experience firsthand what it was like as a farmer in southern Alberta during the Great Depression. It was a very rare opportunity to get to spend so much time on a single lesson plan and dive right into the fine details. I feel lucky to have been able to partner with the Galt Museum on this project and I am excited to see how students react to the program.”

Smith’s Great Depression simulation is still in the building stages but is expected to launch in September.

“LaRae’s work has been amazing,” says Henrickson. “I had envisioned the Applied Study being a jumping-off point for the research and the game, but she was so effective that it was nearly a finished product at the end. She’s also a very talented teacher.”

Weistra’s project focused on Ukrainian-Canadian internment in the First World War, a topic that’s part of the Grade 3 curriculum.

“There was an internment camp here in Lethbridge, although many people don’t know a lot about it,” says Henrickson. “Ben researched the camp in Lethbridge, located where Exhibition Park is now, and the camps in Banff because people from Lethbridge went there.”

Several prisoners escaped from the Lethbridge camp in 1916 using shovels, an auger and a fan to dig a tunnel under the fence. These tools are now held in the Glenbow Archives and therefore cannot be easily accessed by Grade 3 classes in Lethbridge. Ben examined how technologies like augmented reality, photogrammetry and 3D printing can be used to bring replicas of these objects to local students.

“This project not only made me realize the potential of using 3D/AR/VR technology in my future teaching adventures and other history projects, but also led to great connections at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, the Galt and Agility,” says Weistra. “It also led to other great experiences like taking part in the Agility pitch competition. As a student with Ukrainian heritage, it also makes me proud to be able to take part in a project like this which helps bring light to a darker and lesser-known part of Ukrainian-Canadian history.”

U of L Agility, a student-centred program that focuses on innovation, provided valuable support for Weistra’s project by sharing knowledge about virtual reality and 3D printing. He also won the Agility Pitch Competition with his idea and now the Galt is waiting for the outcome of a grant application to help with the costs of digitizing the objects.

As part of their learning, Weistra and Smith presented their projects during the recent Institute for Child and Youth Studies symposium and have each won scholarships as a result.

“LaRae and Ben were spectacular students and they made significant contributions to the museum,” says Henrickson. “We are very excited that both of them are working with us again during the summer. I am also very thankful to Dr. Alexander and the U of L for supporting these projects.”

Two U of L students win significant history awards

caroline.zentner — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 20:03:42 +0000

For their part in illuminating aspects of Canadian history, Ashley Henrickson and Danica Renke, two ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge master’s students, have won 2017 Government of Canada History Awards worth $2,000 each.

Ashley Henrickson, left, examined the experiences of children during the First World War and Danica Renke looked at the reasons why women joined the military effort during the Second World War.

The awards honour the exceptional work of university students studying history, for the significance of their research in Canadian history, or education, for the originality of an activity for teaching Canadian history, and the work of high school students who have shown an interest in great moments in Canadian history. Henrickson and Renke are among 20 winners in the university category and a total of 192 students shared in $200,000 worth of prizes this year.

“The entire history department is delighted for Ashley and Danica — they are exceptional students, and these awards are prestigious recognition of their work,” says Chris Burton, Chair of the Department of History. “The awards are also a testament to the strength of the graduate program and the study of history at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.”

Renke, who’s in her first year of a Master of Arts program, examined the reasons why women became involved in the Canadian armed forces in the Second World War. Women found themselves provided with new and exciting opportunities through organizations like the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service, the Canadian Women’s Army Corps and the Canadian Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.

Renke, through her research, found that a major motivating factor for women to join the military service was having a deep and personal connection to someone already serving, such as a family member, spouse or friend. Those who felt such a connection wanted to “do their bit” to contribute to the war effort, help bring their loved ones home or justify the death of someone who had perished in the war.

Some women reported feeling a sense of patriotic duty to help out, especially if friends or loved ones were already serving. Others felt the need to “take up the torch” if they’d lost a family member or to “avenge” the death of a family member. One woman reported that her work in the service was a coping mechanism in that it provided her a distraction while she was grieving the loss of her husband.

Henrickson, also a Master of Arts student, examined the wartime emotions and experiences of Canadian children during the First World War. She looked at letters submitted to the Maple Leaf Club, a children’s correspondence club printed in Canada’s most popular national newspaper.

In their letters, children typically listed the number of relatives they had fighting overseas and described their own interests. While some historians have concluded children didn’t understand the horrors and dangers of war, social historians look at the larger context of the social rules of the time. Children would have been aware of the horrors of war from soldiers’ letters, newspaper articles, funerals in their communities and from soldiers who returned home with disfigured bodies and missing limbs. As they had been taught in school and church, children were expected to act and feel patriotic. Newspaper editors would have also been very careful not to print letters that endangered public morale or questioned Canada’s participation in the war.

The Great War was not hidden from children but was seen as an important teaching tool and a worthy cause for children to contribute to by knitting socks, raising money, saving food, working on farms or planting victory gardens. Today, the prevailing view is that children should be protected from war, illustrating the idea that the relationship between children and war is an ever-shifting social construct.

Raising Spirit project receives Canada 150 grant

caroline.zentner — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 17:08:07 +0000

The Raising Spirit project by the Opokaa’sin Early Intervention Society, and supported by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Institute for Child and Youth Studies (I-CYS), has received a Canada 150 grant worth $10,000 that will allow it to undertake a series of workshops that will culminate in a public exhibit at Casa in September.

“The purpose of the exhibit is to showcase the creative work of southern Alberta Blackfoot children and youth,” says Dr. Erin Spring, a post-doctoral fellow with the I-CYS and Raising Spirit project manager. “They’re not only going to be creating the exhibit in terms of doing the art, they’re also going to be curating the exhibit. It’s going to feature their voices, their stories, their creative capacities.”

From left to right are Kaitlynn Weaver, Tesla Heavy Runner, Dr. Jan Newberry, Amy Mack, Taylor Little Mustache, Dr. Erin Spring and Hudson Eagle Bear.

The Canada 150 Grant, awarded by the Community Foundation of Lethbridge and Southwestern Alberta, is designed to encourage participation in Canada 150 activities and to inspire a deeper understanding of the people and places that shape the country. Raising Spirit is a project to help ensure Blackfoot history, language and values endure and help build future generations. The Canada 150 funding will be directed toward a series of art workshops for Blackfoot children and youth.

“It’s kind of a sub-project within Raising Spirit called Elders of the Future,” says Kaitlynn Weaver, a master’s student working with Dr. Kristine Alexander, a history professor and one of the principal investigators on the Raising Spirit project.

For older youth, Weaver organized a zine workshop that focused on art as a form of activism and resistance. Three- to six-year olds participated in a storytelling and art workshop. A collage-making workshop for older youth is scheduled for March and others will be held at Opokaa’sin, the U of L and Casa. As part of the curating exercise, youth will learn how to mat and frame a photo and how to create an exhibit.

“Our exhibit will mark the anniversary of Confederation by celebrating the resilience of Indigenous families and communities. It speaks to colonialism but also is a way of looking forward and talking about reconciliation, resurgence and resilience to show that their community is strong, that their culture is strong and that their people are strong,” says Spring.

During the exhibit, the digital library created from the Raising Spirit project will be launched to the public, along with a mobile application for the library. In addition to the materials generated from the Elders of the Future workshops, the library will contain photos from principal investigator Dr. Jan Newberry’s photo elicitation project and people’s responses to them, and storytelling sessions with elders and youth at Opokaa’sin.

Raising Spirit has been supported by funds from the Urban Aboriginal Knowledge Network, PolicyWise for Children and Families and the U of L Office of Research Services. Funding from the Summer Temporary Employment Program enabled the hiring of two Blackfoot high school students, Tesla Heavy Runner and Hudson Eagle Bear, as ethnographers and curators.

Along with Newberry and Alexander, Tanya Pace-Crosschild (BSc ’98), executive director at Opokaa’sin and member of the U of L Board of Governors, has served as a community principal investigator. She is joined by Francis First Charger, project elder, and Dr. Michelle Hogue, research consultant and U of L professor in the First Nations Transition Program. Others who have been involved in the project include Ashley Henrickson, a master’s student; Taylor Little Mustache, an undergraduate student; and Amy Mack, lead researcher.

UNews - Ashley Henrickson

U of L students create innovative programming for Galt Museum

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Two U of L students win significant history awards

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Raising Spirit project receives Canada 150 grant

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