4th and 5th graders Travel to Ridge View Middle School for Civil War Exhibit

On Thursday,Sept. 15 and Friday, Sept. 16 RidgeView Middle school hosted an exhibit made available from the Iowa historical society. This exhibit was called "The Fiery Trial: Iowa and the Civil War." Schaller elementary students in grades four and five were bussed over to the middle school and all of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade classes were able to go through the trailer exhibit. The exhibit included a timeline of Iowa's participation in the Civil War, information about Annie Wittenmyer, and the impact of the Civil War on Iowa. There was a computer program that allowed the students to research Civil War ancestors by person, town, township, or congressional district. The computer search was a favorite activity of the students and many located their surnames during their searches. As being a host for the exhibit our library received two books: "Profiles of Valor: Iowa's medal of honor recipients of the civil war" and "Outside In, African American history in Iowa 1838-2000". These are now available for checkout in our middle school library. Several students have expressed further interest in their civil war ancestors. A good internet link for research is http://iagenweb.org/civilwar/county