The significance of a Canadian cap badge (WW1)!!!

Hey folks, welcome back. Today I’ll be reflecting on the WW1 project that we’ve been working on since the start of this quarter. Here is the driving question and my answer to it, please go along with me through the GREAT WAR EXHIBITION!

DQ: How might we use artifacts and film to show the significance of WW1?

Most artifacts are not so significant by themselves, but they all have detailed background stories and symbolize something much more important. By using films, it allows us to connect the topics creatively and show interesting visuals. It can make the story more engaging and give the audience a stronger perception. By making a film of an artifact, with photos and evidence we can tell better and more accurate stories of WW1. This way, we can explain why the artifacts are historically significant, and important to us today.

This project is one of the most significant pieces of Canadian history. Throughout this project we had six milestones, and had different tasks for each of them. The milestones and steppingstones that we had in this project were a process of making one video. The process starts from launching, to building knowledge, researching, screenplay, storyboard, filming, editing, and presenting. I got my answer to the driving question after knowing what a video can do, and the significance of my artifact.

Here is my WW1 video that explains to you why my artifact is significant to Canadian history.

I chose my artifact in the first week of the project. My artifact was a Canadian dressing cap badge that the Canadian soldiers wore in WW1. The badge has the Canada title with the crown on top, and the whole badge is in a shape of a maple leaf. The main purpose was to distinguish the Canadian soldiers from their British counterparts, but it also represents Canada’s participation in the war and symbolizes the pride and loyalty that the soldiers had for Canada.

We were asked to choose WW1 Canadian soldiers that could creatively relate to our artifacts. The information of the soldier must be accurate, and the sources have to be reliable. I chose a soldier called Smith Finley Mcgillivray. He was in the Canadian infantry serving at the 116^th battalion of the Canadian expeditionary force. He joined the military at the age of 19, when he was still a student.

During the battle of Cambrai, he was instantly killed by an intense machine gun, and died at the age of 21. There are a lot of soldiers like him that died of a young age because of the war. The reason I chose this ordinary soldier was because he is representative of the age group of the soldiers that participated in WW1, and the peaceful days that we are living in right now are because of the sacrifices that those young soldiers had made.

There are two competencies in this project that we had to demonstrate through each milestone.

The first one is Establish Historical Significance: How do we make choices about what is worth remembering.

The second one is Global Collaborator: How might I use technology to connect to the world.

I accomplished both competencies on milestone two. I did research on my artifact and soldier, then wrote a brief paragraph on the artifact’s purpose, what it symbolizes and what it meant for the soldiers. I did a good job on analyzing the research and the details given, which is a part of Global Collaborator, but could’ve improved on the wordings and details of the symbolism section.

The other two milestones that I found extremely helpful were the screenplay and the storyboard. My information and research started forming together as a complete story. When I was making my screenplay, I thought of good connections between my soldier and artifact, but there was a point where I wrote that “Smith Finley Mcgillivray would always look at his hat before going to fight,” which was not true, so later on I changed it to “would have probably.” Otherwise, I feel accomplished on the Global Collaborator competency. After a week or so, we started working on our storyboard. It was a simple task but really exhausting. The reason why it was exhausting was because of the number of things that we needed to plan out. For example, the timing for each frame, the voice over for each picture, and the copy right free photos from the 1900s, but I managed to finish it all and find quality photos.

Overall, I accomplished both competencies, and extending at finding good footage and explaining the symbolism of the story.

Here comes the most exciting part…the Great War Exhibition!!! It was the last week of the project when all of us hosted an exhibition in the library. We got a chance to put our hands on the real artifacts and created elevator pitches for the audiences. It was a great time and almost everyone in our school got a chance to visit our small museum. For the elevator pitch I wrote a few sentences that I would say when they came to my station. I summarized the most important information and made it as natural as it could sound.

In conclusion, I learned a lot about WW1 and symbolism in this project. I noticed that the artifacts and soldiers themselves might not have a direct impact how we live today, but they are all part of a bigger picture. Like the cap badge, it is a decoration, but it also symbolizes nationalism, the pride and loyalty that the soldiers had. As I mentioned, in this project we studied one of the most significant pieces of the Canadian history. World War One was a great turning point for Canadian history. It was a significant step for Canada to become its own nation. In the treaty of Versailles, Canada signed independently, and it was the first time that Canada was introduced to the world.