Veteran’s Appreciation Project
Project Title: Veteran’s Appreciation Project
Created by: Patricia Ellison
Class: CMap
Project Description
As a part of a social studies project, the
students will learn about veterans and the
important role they have played in creating
the freedoms we enjoy in the United States. To
help them make a personal connection to
veteran’s in our community we will help the
cemetery create a map that will mark the
graves of all of veterans buried in the Sandy
City Cemetery.
This will aid students in learning about the
community members who have helped create
and maintain our freedoms, and will develop
an understanding of why we honor Veterans
on Veteran’s Day. It will also be a way for us to
provide a map with longitude and latitude
measurements, as they do not have one at this
time.
Community Issue or
Problem Selected
-How project evolved?
The website for the cemetery does not
currently have any record of veteran graves
located in the cemetery. Having this
information may help the city/other
community partners (such as my class) have
resources that will highlight their burial
locations.
Community Partner(s)
Sandy City Cemetery/Parks & Rec department
Project Objectives
Students are not aware of the veterans graves
located at the local cemetery. The city does
not currently mark veteran’s graves with flags.
Adding flags to the graves would show respect
for the vet’s and will also help students learn
about their role in history.
Social Studies – Standard 5 - Students will
address the causes, consequences and
implications of the emergence of the United
States as a world power. Objective 1a. Review
the impact of World War I on the United States.
1c. Analyze how the United States’
involvement in World War II led to it’s
emergence as a superpower
* Who/What is a Veteran and why is it
important for me to understand their role in
American history?
* How can we (as citizens of the United States)
promote honor and gratitude for those who
have served our country?
* How can we aid our community in making it
easier to honor those who have fought to give
us the freedoms we enjoy?
KWL rubric, on site participation scoring guide,
Daily Reflection Scoring Guide, Who/What is a
Veteran Final Project Rubric
Utah Core
Standards/Objectives
Essential Question(s)
-Spatial Issue
Assessments (rubrics,
scoring guides)
Project Products
Project Timeline
(include a step by step
Procedures)
The project will include the production of a
map with waypoints marking the gravesites of
veteran’s. Where possible, there will be a
picture of the actual veteran, and an image of
the gravestone. For “extra credit” students
may produce a short summary of a veteran’s
life.
Day 1-2 – Introduce the project. Use a KWL
chart to gather information about what
students know and want to know about
veteran’s in our community. Talk about who
they are and what impact they have had on
the history of our nation – specifically WWI and
WWII. Go over the schedule and scoring for
the project. (Write a reflection each day about
what students expect to learn, actually learn,
and any questions they may have about the
project.)
Days 4 – 6 – Talk about what the project will
include. Teach the students about what a GPS
is and how it is used. As a class practice using
the GPS to find geocaches around the school.
(Write a reflection each day listing steps for
how to use the parts of the GPS discussed in
class. Also, include why GPS devises are
important and useful in the world today.)
Days 5 – 7 – Teach the students how to find
waypoints, by creating geocaches in small
groups and then hiding, & marking them for
other groups to find. Have the students
practice finding other students caches until
they are proficient. (Write a reflection each
day listing steps for how to find and mark
waypoints effectively.)
Day 8-10 – Invite a few (2-4) local veteran’s to
come into the classroom and each share
“their story” for 5 min. If possible, get vet’s from
different time periods and different wars. TRY to
include at least one vet from WWII, as well as
vet’s who have recently returned home (if
possible). Spend time talking about why their
contributions to society are SO important that
there is a national holiday to honor them.
(Each day students will also reflect on what
they learned about being a vet, as well as
what they learned about the wars the visitors
fought in. Allow for student questions as well.
Be sure to introduce the extra credit project,
and provide a list veteran’s whom we will be
looking for at the cemetery. If possible share a
sample.
Day 11 – Visit the Sandy City Cemetery. Take
waypoints and pictures of the graves there is a
listing for. Be sure to have students record the
information while there.
Day 12 – 13 – Help students put in the data
they found, and guide them through the
process of adding images. (The teacher will
need to download any images taken oh the
trip right at the end of day 11. Again, for days
11 – 13, have students keep a reflection
log/journal of they have learned and how
veterans through out the past 150 years, have
affected history.
Day 14 – 15 – Gather any extra credit projects
and head to the Sandy City Cemetery. Split
the class into groups and have them find and
mark waypoints for all of the veteran graves in
the cemetery. Take points back to class and
begin plotting them into maps.
The day before or the day of, students will go
back to the cemetery to place small flags on
each of the graves marked previous. After
returning to school the students who chose to
do research on local vet’s will share their
findings. The students will complete the
experience by creating a project that
represents who/what a veteran is to them.
Resources Needed
- Class set of GPS devices
- List of Veterans from the city
- Camera/photo taking devise
- Mini American Flags
- Computer
Skills Required
Students will need to learn how to use the GPS
units, as well as how to tape and upload
images of the gravestones. They will also need
help/knowledge to upload the waypoints onto
an interactive map.
Teacher(s): Patricia Ellison
Project Team Member
Roles
Students: Sandy Elementary Students (5th
graders)
Partner(s): Sandy City Parks and Rec
department
Celebration/Presentation Using the map we create as a class, we will
walk to the cemetery on Veteran’s Day (or a
day or two prior) and put small flags in the
ground to honor their service. If possible, we
will have students share any information we
can find on any of the veterans once we
return to school.
Project Evaluation
There will an evaluation of how well the
students participate and are accurate with
mapping their data. They will also be
evaluated on how well they use their map to
return and mark the highlighted veterans
graves. There will also be evaluations on the
students understanding of the importance of
citizens who are willing to fight for our country
via their reflection assignments.
Project Bibliography
ARCGIS Website
Garmin BaseCamp Website
List of Veteran’s Names provided by Sandy
City (via email with Isabel Patterson)
Plans for Future CMaP
If all goes well with the cemetery close to our
Activities
school, we may continue the project with
other cemeteries (public and private) in Sandy
the following year. Seeing that the other
cemeteries are much larger, it may take a few
years to complete the project in one of these
cemeteries.