[blacksmith working]
>>See, now I got it spread out even more.
>>Narrator: These third graders in Fairfield, California are helping
to preserve a vanishing piece of local history.
>>Student: How long did you have to train
like for to be a real blacksmith?
>>Blacksmith: You can learn basic blacksmithing in about six months.
>>Narrator: Students at Tolenas Elementary School made several field
trips to document the history and resources
of nearby Suisun Marsh and Rush Ranch.
>>Okay. Good.
>>Narrator: They plan to share their findings online with classrooms
across the country with what teacher, Eva calls, The Geo-Literacy Project.
>>We wanted to do something where could take our county, our history,
our geology, our geography and encourage students
to become literate in it.
>>Narrator: All of the content on the Geo-Literacy webpage grew
out of self-directed inquiry by La Mar's third graders.
>>Eva: We started with an essential question
which is why was the preservation of Rush Ranch important?
>>The students picked the area they wanted to research.
They drove their own projects.
The groups were looking at specific plants and specific animals.
>>Woman: That's called Miner's Lettuce.
I don't know if it has a smell.
>>Student: And it smells a tiny bit.
>>Eva: We're just looking at specific Native American issues.
>>Man: Obsidian, very good.
>>Student: They used that as a knife.
>>Eva: The blacksmith shop and then the history of Rush Ranch
from pre-Columbian all the way up to now.
So our students became the authors, the photographers, the videographers,
and the local historians working
with the high school students and historians.
>>Teacher: Tule is a wonderful material that the Indians used
and the Indians made tule ducks.
I made this-
>>Eva: We realized that we had some local experts.
A retired teacher named Barbara Van Putten
who had all these wonderful materials.
She had original arrowheads, she had original baskets
and you can't take those into every classroom, so my students invited her
to come into class and bring all her Indian tools
that she had and artifacts.
>>Barbara Van Putten: You're not going to pull this apart, good.
Thank you.
>>Narrator: Fairfield High School students helped the third-graders
produce object rotations by photographing artifacts
from different angles to create a three-dimensional digital image.
>>Eva: My students were the experts with the materials
with the objects being photographed,
and the high-schoolers were the experts with the equipment.
>>Student: Okay, one more picture.
>>Eva: It was a very happy meeting of the minds.
>>Jennifer: See you can see what you're going to take a picture of.
>>Narrator: Members of Armijo High School's technology club offered
to capture video clips and virtual reality stills for the webpage.
>>Jennifer: Alright, now I'm working on the virtual tour for Rush Ranch.
And basically the project will go on their website and I'm trying
to make the highest quality panorama that I can
with the footage that I took.
>>Eva: I'm looking for something that you learned
and something that was amazing.
>>Narrator: La Mar believes that by studying their local history,
students can taste the joy of lifelong learning.
>>Student: It might have been chasing like a salt marsh harvest mouse
or something because it showed like the footprints heading to the hill
as if it were chasing something.
>>All of you know what this is, right?
>>Student: Yeah, that's the horn of the...
>>Eva: They developed a love for history.
They look back at choices that were made historically and they realize
that this has a meaning to our lives and that's what you really hope
as a teacher that you can get them
to understand is what they're learning now does have a meaning.
It's not just a hoop they jump through.
They develop a love for learning.
>>Narrator: Using the Fairfield webpage
as a template La Mar hopes other communities will make their own
Geo-Literacy sites.
>>Eva: Part of this project is the hope
that we can take students anywhere in this country that we are studying
and go to that community's Geo-Literacy site and look
at their history, look at their topography, look at their geology.
>>And some of them did like the same things as we did,
we could learn different facts off of them,
and like- Maybe add it to their-
>>Ours, and show everyone what all of us have learned
from off of each other, Yeah.
>>For more information on what works
in public education go to edutopia.org