Heritage Saskatchewan gave awards to three Moose Jaw students during this year’s virtual Heritage Fair, with one student receiving the highest score overall and having the best video presentation.
This year’s fair saw 492 students from grades 4 to 8 produce 479 projects about Canadian-focused history topics.
Grade 5 student Kenzie Crocker from Sunningdale School had the highest overall score for her project titled “Mary Two-Axe Earley." Furthermore, she placed first in the video presentation category and received an award in the society and justice category.
Meanwhile, awards in the Genealogy (Family History) category went to Peyton Clinton for her project titled “Robert Brion” and to Brynn Topp for her project entitled “Derdall Family Centennial Farm.”
Both girls are in Grade 5 at Westmount School.
Also, Ophelia Bourdages received an award in the Historical Thinking category for her project entitled “B.C. Rainforests.”
Bourdages is in Grade 8 at École Palliser Heights School.
All presentations that Moose Jaw students created this year can be found here.
Crocker, Clinton and Topp will appear at the Provincial Heritage Fair in Regina on June 15. This is the first time this event has been held in two years.
When reached for comment, Crocker said she was surprised by how well she did but also very excited. She didn’t expect to receive the top overall score or take first in the video presentation category, so both made her very happy.
This was Crocker’s first year competing in Heritage Saskatchewan’s Heritage Fair.
Crocker focused on Mary Two-Axe Earley — an indigenous women's rights activist — because she was looking for indigenous Canadian women to research.
The student found that Earley was a Mohawk woman who lost her Indian status after marrying a Caucasian man. She knew that it wasn’t fair for First Nations women to lose their status because of who they married, so she fought so women could retain their status.
“I read about her (Earley) a little bit and I wanted to do her immediately,” Crocker said. “When I read about her, I realized that she impacted my family, which was amazing. And she spent 20 years of her life fighting for women to have status.”
Crocker — who is First Nation on her mother’s side — noted that it's now possible for her great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, her and her sister to have their Indian status thanks to Earley. Her great-grandmother lost her status after marrying a non-Aboriginal man but re-acquired it thanks to Earley’s efforts.
The Grade 5 received her Indian status last September and noted she can now show people she is First Nation and no one can tell her she’s not.
Crocker created a video project since she wanted to use her voice to talk about Earley and how that advocacy affected her family. She put together a slide show using all the research she found and filmed the presentation at school.
“It was actually really cool because my slide show was on a TV in front of me, and then there was a green screen behind me and a microphone. And my mom controlled the slide show by computer,” Crocker said, adding she also had help from her “amazing vice-principal,” Durston McKenna.
Crocker added that she thinks it’s cool and exciting to participate in the Provincial Heritage Fair but is also a little nervous.
Katherine Gilks, outreach/projects co-ordinator with Heritage Saskatchewan, told the Moose Jaw Express that it was Crocker’s excellent research and presentation skills that made her project stand out, while her connection and historical thinking impressed the judges.
“It was also a pleasing and exciting video. Being a video would have helped the project because the judges could more easily connect with Kenzie as a presenter than with a written or other type of presentation,” said Gilks, noting many non-video projects did just as well.
Gilks was impressed with all the projects since some were visually stunning, technically well done, charismatically presented, interesting or a combination.
“I always enjoy learning new things from the students,” she added.
