By Tim Leeds
The Havre Middle School will be decorated for a millennium next week.
All of the students at the school have been preparing projects for the Millennium Fair to be held Tuesday, March 7, HMS science teacher Judy Wolfe said. She said the fair is open to the public and held from 5 to 8 p.m.
Wolfe said the faculty and staff at the school thought the students should do something special for this year.
"We thought we should do something to celebrate the millennium," she said. "It's a once in a lifetime event."
Each class at the school will have a time assigned on March 8 to view the other classes' work.
The six teaching teams the students are split into have each been assigned a period from the last 1,000 years.
The seventh grade Dynamic Achievers team has worked on the Middle Ages, from 1000 to 1400 A.D. The seventh grade Dream Team has worked on the Renaissance, from 1400 to 1600 A.D. The sixth grade Shining Stars team has worked on the Baroque Period, from 1600 to 1750 A.D. The sixth grade TNT Team has worked on the classical period, from 1750 to 1820 A.D. The eighth grade Blue Lightning Team has worked on the Romantic Period, from 1820 to 1900 A.D. The eighth grade Red Hots Team has worked on the 20th Century, from 1900 to 2000 A.D.
Each advisory group within the teaching teams has also worked on five or six projects predicting future aspects of society and technology.
Each team is assigned an area in the school to display their work. They had to design a sign that looked like it came from the period they covered to mark the area their work was displayed in.
The students have been doing all of the research and work in preparing the projects, Wolfe said. She said the role of the teachers has been as facilitators for the projects.
Wolfe said the range of projects have varied greatly. She said they include pictures, collages, murals, models, costumes, plays, and music. Each project shows something from or relating to the period assigned to each
group. Some students will be in costume, plays and skits will be performed, and period music will be performed.
The projects had to relate to the society and technology of the time assigned, Wolfe said. She said the projects had to incorporate aspects of social studies, language, science and mathematics.
Wolfe said this is the only time she knows of when the entire student body of the school has worked together on an academic project.
She said the idea came up when she and other teachers at the school were talking over lunch on the first day school this year. She said they presented the idea to Vance Blatter, the school principal, and the rest of the faculty.
Wolfe said once the guidelines for the project were ready, the student work
began.
Some of the projects are group projects and some are individual, Wolfe said. She said her team is working on group projects, such as building a model castle and stained glass. Other groups are presenting a collection of individual projects, such as paintings, posters or period objects.
Wolfe said every student has been involved. A goal of the fair is to have something displayed with every student's name listed as a creator. She said large laminated nametags will be posted on every project to show who worked
on it.
She said there is an academic basis to the fair. The students had to research the period covered to find projects and to complete them.
She said while there has been some work in class, the students have done much of it on their own time. They have worked after school and at home to complete their projects, she said.
Wolfe said the school wanted to do something special for the students at the beginning of the new millennium.
"We hoped it would be an event they remember and take away with them," she said.
