Fifth-grade student Marissa McKinney grew curious about how long the attack on Pearl Harbor lasted while participating in a Pearl Harbor Electronic Field Trip provided by the Eisenhower Foundation on Dec. 7 in a classroom at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home. The Eisenhower Elementary School 5th grader submitted her question that was answered during “Remember Pearl Harbor: How Students Like You Experienced The Day of Infamy,” an interactive webcast streamed live to students throughout the country from the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, La. on the 75th anniversary of the attack.
The answer? About two hours.
Through the webcast, 23 Eisenhower Elementary students toured attack sites in Hawaii, watched original video of the attack and events that followed, viewed artifacts from the National WWII Museum, and listened to the personal stories of those who witnessed the event, many of whom at the time of the attack were the same age as the Eisenhower students listening.
The students also participated in live polls and were given the opportunity to submit questions online during the webcast developed by the National WWII Museum and New Orleans PBS member station WYES.
Mitzi Bankes Gose, the Eisenhower Foundation’s Director of Education, says the Foundation provided the book “A Boy At War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor” by Harry Mazer, to help students prepare for the electronic field trip. Additionally, students conducted Google Earth projects to better visualize and understand the topic, according to Dan Brown, Eisenhower Elementary School 5th Grade educator.
Gose adds that IKEducation, the Eisenhower Foundation’s education program, provided a packet of resources to students to enrich their webcast experience.
“IKEducation provided materials and the opportunity to help students to connect all the dots between the novel they read, the electronic field trip, primary sources referred to in the webinar, and the Eisenhower Museum’s exhibit about Japanese internment camps following Pearl Harbor,” Gose says.
The Japanese internment camp display is part of the Eisenhower Museum’s exhibit, “World War II Remembered: Leaders, Battles & Heroes,” which the students toured using an exhibit guidebook featuring a scavenger hunt.