Students take a ride in a horse-drawn carriage during Museum Days at the Western Development Museum, Thursday. The event continues on Friday, June 7. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Back to the past

Students go back to the past during Museum Days at WDM

Jun 6, 2019 | 4:55 PM

It was hands-on learning at its best.

A total of about 1,200 elementary-school students in the Battlefords and surrounding area stepped back into history this week at the Western Development Museum to experience pioneer life in the early 20th century.

An estimated 600 youth visited the museum on Thursday, and the remaining half were to stop by Friday to take part in Museum Days.

Students learned to make flour, and butter, and tested some early modes of transportation during the event.

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“It’s geared around the Grade 4 (school) curriculum, but all grades are welcome,” Museum Manager Joyce Smith said. Volunteers gave a variety of demonstrations using machinery that would have been popular around the 1920s.

Among some of the highlights, volunteers demonstrated how an old grain-elevator works, along with blacksmithing.

Seeding, petting zoo, and sheep-shearing demonstrations were also on the agenda.

“We have activities indoors and outdoors; the whole village is alive,” Smith said.

The event also included rope-making and grain-cleaning demos.

As well, one of the volunteers used a century-old flour mill and showed how to separate the wheat from the chaff, and grind flour.

Inside the farmhouse, volunteers showed youth how to bake buns on an old-fashioned wood stove.

“All of these activities would include what (students) learn in Grade 4, as part of their social history. How a small farm village life would have functioned,” Smith said.

About 100 volunteers helped during the event.

Volunteer Eileen Humphreys, from rural North Battleford, had homemade butter available for students to sample on crackers, as well as fresh butter milk.

Bready Elementary School teacher Lindsay Munroe said the event was a chance for students to “understand how our life has changed, and technology has gotten better with time. It`s a good day.”

Bready Elementary School students test an old bell at the Western Development Museum during Museum Days, Thursday. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

The event continues on Friday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., and from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. The public is also welcome to attend.

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow