Briarcliff Middle School eighth graders found a way to travel back in time.
The entire eighth grade class recently held a multi-classroom exhibit of posters and other objects featuring major historical events from the past several decades and presented them to their peers.
Each classroom was divided into a different decade (1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s) and featured the exhibits, along with music from that time period. For example, the 1970s room played “Staying Alive” by the Bee Gees, while “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jespen was played in the room dedicated to the 2010s.
When the exhibits were ready to be presented, students were separated into two groups, with one group touring the other rooms to view exhibits, while the other remained in the rooms to act as “tour guides” to the past. After 45 minutes, the two groups switched places.
When students visited the classrooms, they took with them “passports to the past” and wrote down answers to questions such as what they learned from each exhibit, what was the best element of each exhibit and what they thought was the most important event of that decade.
Students received a sticker for each page in lieu of a passport stamp. On the last page of their passports, students wrote a paragraph describing which decade they would want to time-travel to.
AJ was viewing an exhibit from 2000s decade.
“I learned about Michael Phelps and Hurricane Katrina,” he said. “My favorite decade is the 2010s. I think Hurricane Sandy was one of the most important events from that decade.”
The classroom featuring the 1980s decade had an exhibit that displayed a Cabbage Patch Kid doll. One of the students recognized it because her mother owned one when she was a child.
“The 1980s were cool,” said Saranda. “I could recognize a photo of the movie E.T. because I watched it before.”
Saranda could not recognize a photograph of Alyssa Milano, however, nor has she ever heard of the show she starred in, “Who’s the Boss.”
The 1980s room had an exhibit that featured a laptop playing a 1980s aerobics video. Students watched women in the video exercising while wearing legwarmers over a pair of tights.
“I have never seen anything like this before,” one student said.
