“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine” – R.E.M.
Throughout all of my years in PLP, my blog has never been so quiet. This is understandable however as our world is currently in the midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic. In March of 2020, our in-person education was shut down entirely and all classes moved online. PLP classes were more easily able to adapt than others but projects such as our trip to the Deep South ended up being cancelled, along with their blog posts. Now that we are somewhat settling into the “new normal” though, it is time to begin learning, growing and reflecting once again. These weekly posts will help give insight into what I have been taking away in this new learning environment.
Marking History
Our current, and surprisingly exciting, project is called Marking History. Unfortunately, the Deep Cove Heritage Society has fallen on tough times during the pandemic, but with the help of the PLP 11/12 class an updated historical walking tour will be created. Featuring historic visuals, digital maps, new pamphlets and more, we are aiming to bring our community’s rich perspectives and stories back into the light.
The Marking History Project Basecamp
After determining what our role as historians would be and creating our Historian’s Oaths, we hit the ground running by exploring two incredible books put out by the Deep Cove Heritage Society known as Echoes Across the Inlet and Echoes Across Seymour. I was absolutely blown away by how much history our small community has and it opened my perspective to how we are part of a legacy. I was also shocked by how many differing perspectives were in these books. I always just assumed The Cove was full of “cove people” who all acted and thought alike, but it turns out that there are hundreds of small groups who hold different concerns, beliefs and values (e.g. the people who worked at the Dollar Mill held different perspectives than the rich owners).
After our research, we began to choose our locations and topics. Despite talking a lot about the wildlife of Seymour, the sources we explored didn’t tell many stories or give perspectives of this topic. With this in mind, along with the fact that a protest had just occurred after a bear shooting, I decided I wanted my topic to be North Vancouver Wildlife. I then completed a research document along with a multi-paragraph historical overview. The only problem with this was that for the pamphlet we were creating, our historical overview was supposed to be merely 100 words. At first I thought it would be impossible to condense what I had written into that, but then I discovered a new strategy. If you look at the first sentence of any paragraph it will often highlight the focus, and considering these you can pinpoint the big ideas. Using this skill, I successfully shortened my historical overview, but kept the original version in audio format for visitors who would like to learn more:
From writing these historical overviews, I learned the valuable skill of recognizing and overcoming my biases. Whenever I caught myself using descriptive words (e.g. unfortunately, luckily, surprisingly) instead of just stating the facts, I would check to see if there was a bias influencing me. Sometimes there wouldn’t be, but when I would recognize a bias (e.g. my prejudice to environmentalism) I would edit the text to remove it. I then continued this skill over to my digital enhancement; the Our Wild Home Website. I chose this idea for my digital enhancement considering my ongoing goal to not go overboard with unnecessary work, as I knew I could cut down a lot of design time by simply using a template and putting effort into the content. The big idea behind this website is to provide resources which demonstrate a number of different perspectives surrounding local wildlife in order to help others understand our history overcome one-sided biases like I learned how to do. To help with this, I created a bias quiz which allows readers to recognize and challenge their current biases surrounding the website content.
My Website
In making this website, I learned a couple of things. One, of course, is how to make a website. I have been editing and designing my blog for many years now, but to complete one from scratch is a completely new task. I also learned how to use design processes to make both my texts and website engaging and meaningful. I found a document on how our federal museums design their text in order to captivate visitors, bringing in concepts like considering the specific audience, telling a story and focusing on a big idea, and then used these to design my text and website. Another thing I learned how to do is find reliable sources quickly. By just searching up “North Vancouver Wildlife” I was only able to find a couple of links, but by exploring these website’s references I could not only prove they were reliable, but find more reliable sources with ease.
Our project isn’t quite done yet however, so I am excited to see and share what I learn in the future!