Plymouth High School students are teaming up with the Marshall County Historical Society to document the history and evolution of the county’s agriculture industry.
Social Studies Teacher Grant Masson says sophomores from the high school’s Weidner School of Inquiry will be compiling an oral history of Marshall County agriculture and making a video project, “What they’re going to do is they’re going to interview 14 of the influential farming/agriculture families in Marshall County, and the kids are going to come up with the questions to interview them with, are going to record them, are going to edit the recordings, and then are going to come up with some type of visual presentation to go along with those recordings.”
The interviews will then be shown in an exhibit in the Marshall County Historical Museum. Masson says the Historical Society came up with the idea for the project of generating basal oil, but left it up to the students to decide on a specific direction. They chose to set about answering the question, “Since 1836, how has farming evolved in Marshall County?”
Agriculture Teacher Scott Michel says the students began working on the project Monday with a visit to the Historical Museum, “We went to the museum to see the space that we’re going to create, so the students had an idea of what it should look like at the end,” he says. “And we were able to actually see the World War II project that they did last year, so the kids can kind of take something away from that on what the general idea and purpose is.” Students also had the chance to look at some of the museum’s farming exhibits as well as ask questions to the museum staff about some of the major changes experienced in the agriculture industry during the county’s history.
The project has already gotten the attention of U.S. Senator Joe Donnelly, who will be visiting the Weidner School of Inquiry Friday. Masson says students are excited about the chance to talk with the senator about the sustainability of agriculture in Marshall County, “They kind of want to drive some questions in there as to ‘What are you doing to make sure that some of these farms and these products are going to be around for a long time. So our kids, they don’t shy away from controversial issues and they’re pretty excited to pick the senator’s brain to see what he’s actually doing for this local region.”
For now, the students are working with their facilitators to develop interview questions, before they begin shooting the interviews next week. Once those are done, they will edit the videos and create the museum display, with the project planned to be complete before the start of spring break at the end of this month.
