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Minneapolis fourth-graders get lessons from the deep

Richard Sennott, Star Tribune

Students at Hale Community School looked over some artifacts from the RMS Titanic’s wreckage on Monday. The replica ceramic dish with a gold rim and blue field around the edge was used in the first-class dinning area. The ship struck the iceberg on April 14, 1912, and sank in the early morning hours of April 15.

Minneapolis fourth-graders fascinated with the story of the sinking of the Titanic saw history come alive. They got to touch artifacts from the ocean floor.

By JOY PETERSEN, Star Tribune

Last update: April 13, 2009 - 11:56 PM

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On the eve of the 97th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, some artifacts from the 1912 shipwreck found their way to a Minneapolis classroom on Monday.

Fourth-graders at Hale Community School in south Minneapolis have been studying the famous disaster, and with the help of an expert who'll be bringing a Titanic exhibit to the Twin Cities this spring, they learned some new lessons about the more than 1,500 people who died and the more than 700 who survived.

The sneak preview from "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition," which opens at the Science Museum of Minnesota June 12, was presented by Cheryl Muré, director of education for Premier Exhibitions.

She showed students in Evelyn Tapia's fourth-grade class samples of china from the luxury ship, a bank note from Colorado Springs that was brought on board by a passenger, a perfectly preserved wallet and some perfume vials.

To personalize the stories of passengers, Muré dealt out a card to each child bearing the name, age, bunking class, destination and a brief biography of a passenger on board the ship. The cards did not state whether the passenger survived -- that's something she told the students they can discover by visiting the exhibit.

The fourth-graders were encouraged to ask questions about the person whose card they received.

Jackson Funke, 9, had noticed that the person whose history he'd been dealt was playing a card game when the ship crashed into an iceberg in the North Atlantic. He raised his hand and waited patiently until he could ask his question: "Who won the card game?"

"I don't think it mattered at that point," Muré responded.

Tapia said her fourth-graders have been independently studying about the Titanic since she read them a story on the shipwreck. She said many of the fourth-graders have been reading books on the subject in their free time. "It's a subject they are just instinctively fascinated with."

Muré's visit helped the students to connect to history in a tangible way, Tapia said, by seeing items that actually went to the ocean bottom on board the doomed ocean liner.

Maya Arnold, 10, said she was delighted to see the artifacts and that she's looking forward to the larger exhibit. "I hope it's even more exciting."

Joy Petersen is a University of Minnesota journalism student on assignment for the Star Tribune.

IF YOU GO...

WHAT: "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition"

WHEN: June 12 through Jan. 3

WHERE: The Science Museum of Minnesota, 120 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul

TICKETS: $23 for adults and $18 for children

MORE INFO: www.smm.org/titanic

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