March 4, 1998
Students snap photos, tape sounds for multimedia historical tour
By Eric Dick
Herald editor
Twenty East Junior High students will preserve history over the next four months by taking photographs, videotaping street scenes, recording sound bites and noting their geographic position.
The data, along with other records and photographs, will be organized and presented in a CD-ROM computer disk called, "Multimedia Tour of the Historic Traverse Area." Upon completion, which is expected by October, the disk will allow computer users to surf through images and audio of Traverse City's past compared with its present. For instance, users could compare a picture of the City Opera House 100 years ago to its appearance today. They could take a video walking tour of the Central Neighborhood District. And perhaps listen to the whistle of a train that has long since left its tracks. (As for geographic position, a Global Positioning System will coordinate focal points for a digital map of the area.)
Land Information Access Association, a nonprofit corporation in Traverse City that creates land-use planning and resource management software, in partnership with the Con Foster Historical Museum and the Grand Traverse Pioneer & Historical Society, developed the idea for a CD-ROM historical tour.
Last month the association held a computer orientation for the East Junior High students at its Munson Avenue offices. Later in the day at the Con Foster Historical Museum, museum officials and the students outlined an approach to four months of data collection.
The benefits of the project are threefold, people involved say. It affords students an appreciation for local history. The compact disk itself, which will be distributed free to 300 area schools, promotes local history. And any profits from sales of 700 other disks planned for stamping would benefit the museum and the historical society.
For the Land Information Access Association, which aims to help communities preserve their natural and cultural resources through better planning and zoning, the project piques the interest of future land stewards. Association Executive Director Joe VanderMeulen hopes the students, in their four months of recording historical resources, gain an appreciation for their heritage. "It's critical that our children recognize the basis of our community," he said.
Their task becomes an impressionable hands-on exploration of local culture, added Bob Sturtz, a seventh-grade science teacher and project coordinator, who for years has championed the ability of technology in education to build critical thinking skills in uncharted ways. "It's real civics compared with text-book civics," he said.
For the museum and historical society, the computer disk provides a 21st century vehicle to promote awareness of a bygone age.
"We're real excited about it. It's an opportunity to get more people interested in local history," said Bob Wilson, president of the Grand Traverse Pioneer & Historical Society, which is providing numerous photographs for the multimedia CD-ROM tour. "The students are at an age where they could form a long-term interest in history."
Con Foster Historical Museum Director Ann Hoopfer said the compact disk realizes a similar effort the museum has striven years for: a "text book" of local history.
Part of a $9,000 Rotary Charities grant for the project will pay for 150 hard copies of the "historical tour" for schools without access to CD-ROM, Hoopfer said.
The project is expected to cost $38,000 total. In-kind donations and other grants will make up the rest, VanderMeulen of the Land Information Access Association said.
As for the students, well, the project gives them a chance to dabble in high-tech computer software. But they do seem receptive to learning about their local heritage.
"It will be interesting to learn about computers," ninth-grader Casey Ressl said, noting an interest in local history as well. "You don't really realize that Traverse City is that historical."
Classmate Stephen Hancotte, a member of the Timber Wolf Times school newspaper, relished the opportunity to help accomplish something of more importance than just homework. "It's making something that would bring out a product that people could realize and use outside of school," he said.
"Maybe in the future they'll be doing this again, using our resources. That would be cool."