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Campers journey through history
Over the past two weeks, students from all over Loudoun got the chance to hike, bike and canoe their way through regional history.
As part of the Extreme Journey Through Hallowed Ground camp June 30-July 11, the students visited places like Gettysburg, Pa., Harpers Ferry and Montpelier.
The Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area stretches for 175 miles, following the U.S. 15 corridor from Gettysburg, Pa., through Frederick County, Md., and ending at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello near Charlottesville.
During the campers' two-week journey, they prepared a cannon for battle at Antietam National Battlefield.
They built a canal out of Legos to learn about the construction of the C&O Canal.
And they toured Ash Lawn-Highland, the home of the fifth U.S. president, James Monroe.
"It was really fun to learn about all these different things I learned in my classes, but it extended it even further," said camper D'Marco McElhinney, 12, of Leesburg.
That was the mission of the camp, said Bob Lee, one of the lead instructors this year.
"With Loudoun, there is so much history right here," said Lee, a teacher at Blue Ridge Middle School in Purcellville. "This [camp] makes it fun for the kids, and in that fun they pick up on the history."
Besides exploring the different historic sites, the 24 campers were split into 10 groups to create podcasts and online videos, showing what they had learned.
The students used Ulead video software and their own creativity to come up with unique plots for their videos.
In Blue Ridge Middle School student Catherine Wyatt's video, the pages of a book turn to reveal figures from history. People like George Washington, Clara Barton and James Madison are quoted, and passages explain their roles in American history.
Partners Tommy Roche, 12, of Ashburn, and Riley Sanborn, 11, of Potomac Falls, made an Indiana Jones-themed podcast in which they discover a map leading to George Washington's diary. Inside the diary is historical information about all the places the campers visited.
"We were thinking of a storyline and we wanted to do something original," Tommy said. "It was to show the parents what we learned."
Contact the reporter at ecoe@timespapers.com
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