Students participate in wax museum

Elementary students learned at a young age how to present information they gathered to an audience.

Last week, students in Brittney Montgomery and Phyllis Timmons' first-grade classes at Harrison Elementary School participated in a wax museum.

"During this event, students were presenting monologues on the animals they have been researching," Montgomery said.

"The idea stemmed from one of our writing standards on research. Students are expected to be able to write an informational story or report," Montgomery said.

"I decided that I wanted the students to not only research, but take it to the next level and present all their hard work to the staff, students and parents of Harrison Elementary."

Prior to this presentation, students selected an animal and spent about a month researching and filling out facts about the animal including, parenting styles, habitats, predators of their animal and prey.

They also discovered what is their particular animals ate.

Based on the information collected, the students created a monologue of interesting facts unique to their animal. 

"From this experience students were able to learn how to compile information into a way that was interesting and captivating," she said. "They learned how to research appropriately and how to present what they learned to an audience." 

Even though this was new to the students and teachers, Montgomery believes they will do it again year after year because it was so successful.

"The students were excited to do this and learned what it feels like to present to others," Montgomery said.

"They were empowered and filled with joy from the compliments all the other grade levels and teachers were giving them."

As a reward for all the students' hard work they were treated to a field trip to the Hogle Zoo Friday in Salt Lake City.