During the first week of school, Danielle Birchard’s fifth grade classes began thinking about and discussing the theme of community. To get students’ minds on this topic, they took a field trip to the Old Brutus Historical Society, located on North Seneca Street in Weedsport. According to its mission statement, the museum strives to protect and preserve historical artifacts and share knowledge, photographs, and information of the past.

 

Our elementary school adopted a new reading program this year called “Arts & Letters” which comes from the public benefit corporation Great Minds. For fifth graders, Module One’s essential question is “How do communities sustain their culture?”

  

“What better community to start with than our own? A community that is rooted in tradition,” said Birchard.

 

In preparation for the field trip, Old Brutus Historical Society volunteers Tom Atkins, Amy Chirco, Ann Streeter, and Allen Weller were asked to focus the visit on the Weedsport community through the lens of five words: care, traditions, family, stories, and teaching. Students were split into groups and given these presentations about the Weedsport community and its history.

 

Following their trip, Birchard’s students shared what they learned. “I asked them how our Weedsport community sustains its culture,” said Birchard. “How does our community keep our culture going year after year, generation to generation?” The students came up with the following thoughts.

 

Care

• Families take care of their homes. They plant flowers around the flagpole at the school and in the middle of Jackson Street.

 

Traditions

• Community traditions such as the Watch Fire, the Fireman’s Parade and Kiddie Parade, the Fireman’s Field Days, and our school colors of green and white.

 

Family

• Some street names are named after Weedsport families. There are families who have generations of Weedsport community members. For example, the Weller Family has had their farm here for a long time.

 

Stories

• Stories get shared down to preserve the history of our community. Examples include:
  • There used to be a meat market in town
  • The roads were made of brick
  • There was a trolley that ran through town, which is where Trolley Park got its name
  • The town is named after the Weed Family and was once called Weeds’ Basin
  • The church burned down
  • Behind the school used to get flooded and freeze, and people would come ice skate

 

Teaching

• We are taught about our community by our families, our teachers, and people like Mr. Atkins, Mrs. Chirco, Mrs. Streeter, and Mr. Weller.

 

After learning about their own community, students can now learn about other communities as part of the module. The next step in the module was to explore the Nez Perce Tribe, a Native American nation that is indigenous to the Pacific Northwest. Students will be able to connect how the aspects of care, traditions, family, stories, and teaching apply to all other communities across the world. Every community, including Weedsport, uses these components to sustain their culture.