GROSSE POINTE WOODS, Mich. (WXYZ) — A website that’s all about history in and around the Grosse Pointe area will soon be updated thanks to a group of high schoolers.
Adam Hellebuyck is the Dean of Curriculum and Assessment at the University Liggett School. He’s also a social studies teacher and board member of the Grosse Pointe Historical Society.
For the past three years, Liggett high school students have teamed up with the historical society to learn more about local history.
In the past, groups would work closely together on projects.
“It is also centered around off-site visits where we take the students to explore local Detroit and really learn from the places themselves. Both of those things, with Covid-19 restrictions, have been very difficult,” Adam explained.
This year’s project is all about revamping the Grosse Pointe Historical Society’s website.
Students will research local stories and write up articles to update the site, giving them a taste of how historians work in the real world.
Christopher Hemler is a teacher at University Liggett School and said the students are learning skills they would use not just in high school or college, but in the world.
Students who have been a part of this collaboration between the school and historical society say they’ve walked away learning lessons you can’t get in other classrooms.
“I never had the history of Michigan or the history of Grosse Pointe, so I was really drawn to that,” said former student Darshana Subrahamian.
Current student Keelin Dailey says the project helped her learn more about area “and how it relates to the world as a whole and more of our country as a whole.”
Once the website is updated, part of project will continue into the future.
