Teaching history
Putting history on the map

Students in the Global Information System (GIS) class at Springfield High School continue to find ways to teach themselves and others about history through the Illinois State Historical Society's historical markers program.

The school's Illinois State Historical Marker project, now in its fifth year, gives students the opportunity to use state-of-the-art map-making software and iPod technology to create mini-history lessons, which are downloadable on home computers. According to GIS instructor Jenni Dahl, the relationship between history and technology has opened new doors for teaching and for learning.

"The students just love this project," she said. "They are really learning a lot about Illinois history."

Students have created a map of all the Illinois counties, with links to many of the Illinois State Historical Society's 450 markers. Some of these links feature podcasts of the markers, which the students read and record themselves. The links include contemporary and historical photographs, which the students must research.

The program earned the GIS class a grant from Best Buy for the purchase of a new school computer specifically for the markers project. "Even our teachers are getting involved," Dahl said. "One of our teachers has family in the area of the fluorite mining area of southern Illinois and has taken some pictures of the marker there. She is going to visit more historical sites over spring break and take pictures."

Those pictures will be used to present the history of Illinois counties.

ISHS director and markers committee chairman Stu Fliege has worked with the class for two years, providing photographs and GIS coordinates (latitude and longitude), which give the students all they need to make their maps dead-on accurate. The result is the students' Illinois State Historical Marker Project website, located on the school's homepage (www.shs.spring-field.kl2.il.us).

The students' work is so cutting edge that they were invited to present their work at the 2007 Illinois History Symposium, held in Normal this past February. Nineteen students, plus Dahl and her colleague John Taylor, who teaches history at SHS, presented their work to several other teachers, scholars, and history buffs. Not only did it the project showcase the class's work to a new audience, it provided an invaluable experience for students, Dahl said.

19