Grant funds student projects tied to local communities

This past school year a collaborative grant opportunity between the Library of Congress and the Montana Association of Museums funded Seeley Lake Elementary and Swan Valley School projects tied to the Seeley Lake community. 

The Seeley Lake Historical Society partnered with Seeley Lake Elementary in conjunction with the Home Water Grant, a $750 stipend towards school-led projects designed to broaden students' understanding of the communities where they live. Only 12 grants were given out across Montana. 

The focus of the grant was to use primary sources as inspiration and guidance for the projects. In Seeley Lake, the Historical Society and SLE chose sources that included the "River Runs Through It" by Norman Maclean and its familial companion "Home Waters" by John Maclean, along with other primary sources tied to the Seeley-Swan valley. 

For the projects, the Seeley Lake Historical Society partnered with Kristy Pohlman's third-grade class. Using poetry, arts, crafts, trout education, field trips, river aquatics and other outdoor activities, students created projects that embraced and appreciated their Seeley home heritage, according to the Seeley Lake Historical Society. While the third-grade students did not read any Maclean books, Pohlman said they read other primary sources to learn more about the Seeley-Swan Valley. 

"I'm huge into literacy," Pohlman said. "The majority of children no longer sit and read a book with their parents. They are suffering as readers and learners without this. Family dynamics have changed, and there is no longer that time, as parents are out of the home providing for their families. I wanted to encourage students to relate to literature, whatever their book of choice may be."

The students also learned about primary sources through the museum. Cheri Thompson, a member of the Seeley Lake Historical Society, took the third grade class on a tour around the museum, to explore the general themes of each exhibit and the history of the Seeley-Swan Valley. 

Along with touring the museum, students learned to paint a rainbow trout on a wooden cut-out of a fish. One side of the trout was realistic, while the other side was painted in any way the students wanted. With help, students also flattened spoons and forged them into small fish. The final product was fish wind chimes. 

The third grade students' final project was a poetry tree. According to Thompson, the tree revolves around this idea of family and how familial bonds are not always genetic. The branches are made up of paper, where the students write the names of those they consider family, then attach their branch to a tree trunk they share with other classmates. 

"Kids think you have a family, it's the family you live with, but that's not true," Thompson said. "We have a University family and we have a ski patrol family and we have a church family. So we're trying to teach kids that in life, you end up with more than one family and you can pick and make a family if you so want to."

Swan Valley School junior high class toured the Upper Swan Valley Museum to help them better understand the history of Seeley-Swan Valley homesteaders and to draw inspiration for their big end of the year video project, "A Day in the Life of a Homesteader." 

According to Swan Valley Junior High Teacher Colleen Harrington, students do a video project every year that incorporates lessons from whatever curriculum they are learning. This year, in conjunction with the grant, they did a project that involves a river. 

The eight-minute video tells the story of a family of homesteaders named the Fishers living in the Seeley-Swan Valley. Referencing primary sources, the students used texts and information from the museum to tell their stories. According to Harrington, all the props were made out of duct tape, cardboard and construction paper. 

The students constructed everything from fishing poles to washboards to a water wheel. They even included bloopers and commercials in their video. 

"These are amazingly creative, clever kids," Harrington said. "They work magic with just those things. They do not need props, and they create them all themselves and that's just sort of been an ongoing thing. When you have these kids for three years, every successive new kid class comes in and there are two classes ahead of them that have already done these sorts of things and can teach the newer kids. So this has been self-perpetuating my class since I've been here." 

Pohlman also said she is proud of her students' hard work and thankful the Home Water grant gave them an opportunity to learn about "roots and wings," the idea that if a person grows from a base with strong family values and a supportive environment, they will feel more secure when it's their chance to "fly." 

"I truly feel the roots and wings dynamics in 'Home Waters' as well as 'A River Runs Through It,'" Pohlman said. " This is huge for me as a teacher. I want children to have huge dreams that encourage them to be the best version of themselves they can be. I want them to reach for their dreams, while helping them build a strong foundation to spread their wings and soar. Families are not "traditional" as many may think. My hope is that with this project, each of these students was able to see how many people they have encouraging and supporting them."

The results of the students' study and project efforts will be presented as an exhibit at the 2022 "In the Footsteps of Norman Maclean Festival" in Missoula, June 24-26. Attend the free exhibits and see what the students have created at https://www.facebook.com/macleanfestival/