Introduction
 

HELP! The Museum of Virginia's special collection of Civil War artifacts has been ruined by water. Since this display has been damaged, they need your help to restore the Civil War exhibit. The purpose of the exhibit is to educate visitors about life during the Civil War. Your group will become experts on the Civil War by researching the lives of women, soldiers and the role of music during the War. As the expert on women in the Civil War, you will explain and research the roles of women during the Civil War. The soldier role, you will recreate letters that soldiers wrote during the War so that visitors can learn of the hardships they faced. Lastly, as the music specialist, you will describe how soldiers in the War relied on music during battle. It is important to understand the impact that the War had on people left behind as well as those fighting on the battle lines. And, since music was such an important part of people's lives, you will need to show the role of music during battle.

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The Task
 

As a group of three, it will be your job to restore the exhibit entitled "Civil War." Each student will assume an expert role of one of the three categories, women, soldiers or music. After each member of the group has completed their expert research, you will come back together as a group to finish the exhibit. You will create your exhibit on poster board and share your display as a group with your class. The final exhibit will be divided into four sections, an introduction for your visitors, women's roles during the Civil War, letters written by soldiers in battle and the uses of music during the War.

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The Process
 

This section will explain how you will create an excellent exhibit. There are three roles in the process. Each member of your group will assume one role. Choose the role in which you are most interested.

Role # 1: Women

This role involves looking at the lives of women on the home front during the Civil War.

Role # 2: Letters

This role explores some of the letters written by soldiers during the Civil War.

Role # 3: Civil War Music

This role involves researching and working with pieces of music used during the Civil War.

Next, your group should come back together to prepare the display for the exhibit. Your exhibit should be completed on poster board and include a board for each of the researched areas starting with an introductory board.

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Evaluation
 

There are three rubrics from which you will be graded. Each rubric will represent one category, which include the display, presentation, and group work. These rubrics are on a scale from 1-4 with 1 needing improvement and 4 equalling excellent. Make sure to read the expectations listed on the rubric thoroughly so you know what your teacher is grading you on.

Click here to open the evaluation rubrics in a new window.

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Conclusion
 

Congratulations! You and your group have successfully restored the "Civil War Lives" exhibit. There is one last step in completing your project. You now need to share what you have learned about certain social aspects of life during the American Civil War. Each group will be given five minutes to present their exhibit to the class. Be creative…you may even want to pretend that you are the museum's tour guide!

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Credits & Copyright
 

This webquest was created by preservice teachers in the Education Department and the Teacher Licensure Program at University of Richmond.

The original document for this WebQuest was created by Jill Jackson, Erin Stults, and Kristin Taylor during the fall semester of 1999. The redesign of this WebQuest was created by Kelly Wright, Lara Kempton, and Sloan Lawson during the spring semester of 2002. This WebQuest was created in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a course on integrating technology across the curriculum.

Assistance for this project was provided by Patricia Stohr-Hunt, Ph.D and Kimberlye P. Joyce, M.Ed.. They maintain this site as an interactive resource for educators, students and parents. All inquiries and comments regarding this document should be mailed to them at the following address: kjoyce@richmond.edu and pstohrhu@richmond.edu.

The template for this site came from The WebQuest Page.

Copyright Notice © 1999-2002

Teachers may adapt this lesson for classroom use only or per variations that have been suggested. The reproduction of any portion of this site for an entire school or school system is strictly prohibited. No part of this publication may be transmitted, stored, recorded or published in any form without written permission from the course instructor. Modifications, updates and changes to the actual site by making adaptations to create a new genre, theme or grade level, in which a new site is developed for publication to the WWW, must be approved by the instructor. Appropriate citations and links to the original document must be included within the new site.

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