It all started with an idea...
During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, National Geographic Certified Educator Dr. Aspen Mock was discussing the possibilities of ideas for a Pennsylvania-specific grant with Ms. Fay Gore, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Director for National Geographic. Dr. Mock had been presenting workshops for National Geographic Education through another grant, training educators on National Geographic's Explorer Mindset. The spark for this idea was ignited by the Explorer Mindset and a belief in the power of storytelling. Dr. Mock had presented a National Geographic Explorer Mindset professional development session for local educators at Johnstown Area Heritage Association (JAHA). Additionally, Dr. Mock and JAHA had partnered previously on other student project initiatives including the writing and production of original full-length student podcast plays on the 1889, 1936 and 1977 Johnstown Floods, and a digital storytelling project about the floods. After Dr. Mock teamed up with CEO Richard Burkert on the project, JAHA was awarded a grant from National Geographic Education to implement a learning project designed to offer a premiere learning experience for students that could be completed through both distance and in-person learning. This project empowered student imagination with the opportunity to author and illustrate an original children’s book based on National Geographic Education’s hallmark approach to learning, the Explorer Mindset, with attention to the ASK framework: The Attitudes, Skills & Knowledge of an explorer. Print copies of books with an accompanying learning guide were then donated to elementary classrooms at partnering districts so that teachers could utilize them for classroom learning.
Teacher & Student Explorers
Based on a story frame designed by project leader and editor and National Geographic Certified Educator Dr. Aspen B. Mock, high school teachers Tracey King and Melissa Cabo from Greater Johnstown School District (GJSD), Deborah Gdula from Forest Hills School District (FHSD) and Michael Schellhammer from Bishop McCort High School (BMHS) all served as mentor teachers for their students, guiding them on their journeys through authoring each section of the book inspired by the ASK Learning Framework from National Geographic Education with themes of curiosity, responsibility and empowerment. The student authors and illustrators include Forest Hills Junior-Senior High School students Brady Ambrose, Alexis Henderson, Maria Felix, Nadia Daubert, Doran Faith and Lisa Konchan; Greater Johnstown High School students Cassidy Carthew, Jordan Stricker, Skyanna Yokum-Natta, Jacob Helbig, Kylie Taylor, and Mia Scaletta; and Bishop McCort High School students Madeline Oliveros, Anna Lovette, Ennio Estaban and Olivia Cover.
Illustrator Expert
Koa Beam, the project’s artist mentor, led the students and teachers through a series of workshops in which they created their very own character. Each school then developed their character’s attributes and featured them in their section of the story. GJSD created the Miles character, FHSD created the Mia character, and BHMS created the Maeve character. The storyline, which has a target audience of school-age elementary children, was inspired by real-life exploration of the Laurel Highlands undertaken by the students and their teacher mentors. The story features well-known locations, symbols and more from Johnstown, including the Wagner-Ritter House, Morley’s Dog, and the Conemaugh River…with otters.
"It was a pleasure to work with the teachers and students to help them create this book for JAHA." -Koa Beam
“The model we used for working on this is very similar to what Pixar or Disney implements for animated films by providing an overarching story frame and a character focus. With the guidance of their teachers and Mr. Beam, each student was empowered by National Geographic’s Explorer Mindset as they became illustrators and authors of the story. Elementary students Marcus Simms, Kinsie Ferre and Scarlett Vasas all assisted with the editing process of the book as the first readers of the content. All of the sections were then woven together to create one cohesive tale, which became the children’s book The Laurel Highlands Explorers.” -Dr. Aspen B. Mock
Student & Teacher Expeditions & Field Experiences
The storyline was inspired by real-life exploration of the Laurel Highlands undertaken by the students and their teacher mentors with support from JAHA. JAHA, as well as community members and organizations created guided field trips and experiences for students to apply the Explorer Mindset.JAHA guided the entire process by crafting and curating a digital archive of their vast repository of resources for the project’s content research aspect with support and research materials curated by JAHA’s curator, Amy Reagan. JAHA staff including Marisa Tracey and Angel Ashby, as well as community members and organizations such as the Mike Cook, Chris Garbark from Conemaugh Valley Conservancy, JAHA and Lisa Meadows from Yellow Creek State Park created guided field trips and experiences for students to apply the Explorer Mindset.
Forest Hills Junior-Senior High School's Journey
The overall experience to lend a hand in creating a story where everyone’s own creative ideas were taken seriously will be unforgettable for me. -Doran Faith (Author & Illustrator)
“An educational opportunity such as this provided such a sense of achievement for my son. I cannot thank JAHA and Mrs. Debbie Gdula enough for choosing him to participate.” -Mrs. Jennifer Ambrose, parent & teacher
Johnstown Area Heritage Association
Johnstown Area Heritage Association
By Amy Regan
The Johnstown Area Heritage Association’s archives and museum collections include a wide range of materials relating to the history of the Greater Johnstown area. Perhaps best-known for our archives of photographs and documents relating to the 1889, 1936, and 1977 Floods, we also have collections on a variety of topics, including industrial history and ethnic heritage. JAHA also maintains a collection of artifacts relating to Johnstown’s history.
For this project, JAHA Curator Amy Regan provided a digital collection of archival in the form of photographs and documents from the JAHA collection and other resources for students to utilize. These resources became a vehicle for inspiration to the students and guided them through the story process.
Wagner-Ritter House and Garden and The Human Journey
The house is an 1860s working-class family home that housed three generations. Wagner-Ritter house represents the lifestyle and customs of thousands of immigrant families moving to Johnstown in the late 1800s to work in the growing iron industry.
Industry in Johnstown
Founded in 1852, the Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown made an important contribution to American industrialism – it is considered one of the greatest of the early modern iron and steel works. Forerunner of Bethlehem Steel Company, United States Steel Corporation, and other late 19th and 20th-century steel companies, the Cambria plant became a model for the industry. In the late 1800s, Johnstown attracted the best and brightest minds in the industry, notably William Kelly, George and John Fritz, Daniel J. Morrell, Robert W. Hunt, William R. Jones, and Alexander Holley. These men advanced the iron and steel technology through invention and industrial design in Johnstown, work which was widely copied by other iron and steel companies. This enormous contribution signaled the end of America’s reliance on British-produced rails and allowed the expansion of the nation’s railroad network.
Before Cambria’s founding in 1852, only a very few small-scale blast furnaces and foundries existed in Johnstown. At that time, Johnstown and its suburbs had a population of about 5,150. But the city was blessed with abundant deposits of iron ore, coal, wood, a water supply. With the arrival of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1854, Johnstown became an ideal location for the Cambria Iron Works. After a few difficult years the company took off, and by 1858 it had become one of the nation’s largest producers of rails. As the mill grew, thousands of immigrants, many from Southern and Eastern Europe, came to Johnstown to work in the steel mills and coal mines, and many settled next to the mill in the area of Johnstown still known as Cambria City. By 1890, Johnstown’s population had increased to 30,114.
Our Changing Planet: 1889, 1936, and 1977 Floods
On May 31, 1889, a dam owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club burst, releasing 20 million tons of water towards the valley where Johnstown resided. The disastrous flood devastated the people, industry, and town of Johnstown. The flood became nationally and internationally known as collections for the Johnstown relief effort came from within the U.S. and 18 foreign countries. The American Red Cross, led by Clara Barton and organized in 1881, arrived in Johnstown on June 5, 1889 – it was the first major peacetime disaster relief effort for the Red Cross.
On March 17, 1936, Johnstown experienced a devastating flood caused by heavy runoff from melting snow and three days of rain. Before the waters receded the following day, the flood had risen to 14 feet in some areas. The disaster became the catalyst for major federal support to rehabilitate Johnstown. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) mustered every available man in a four-county area to provide assistance-some 7,000 men and 350 trucks were set to the task of digging out the town. After the flood wreckage had been cleared, long-term public works programs began, such as replacing sidewalks, roads, and bridges.
A line of severe thunderstorms stalled over Johnstown on July 20, 1977, dropping as much as a foot of rain in some areas. Small streams – Solomon’s Run, Sam’s Run, Peggy’s Run – carved new channels and smashed through expressways, apartment buildings, factories and homes. An earthen water supply dam collapsed at Laurel Run Reservoir, one of several dams that failed. The waters overflowed the channel system in Johnstown that was to have left the city “flood-free.” However, according to later estimates by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the water level could have been as much as 11 feet higher if the channel system had never been built.
Elementary Teachers & Students
Elementary teachers Mrs. Melissa Burkardt (GJSD), Mrs. Jennifer Ambrose (FHSD), Mrs. Maria Gibson (FHSD), Mrs. Becky Wehner’s Class. Mrs. Staci Faith’s Class (FHSD) and Divine Mercy Elementary School all volunteered to read the books as part of their curriculum at their respective school districts. Elementary students were inspired by the Explorer Mindset and the mentorship of the student authors and illustrators by reading copies of the book provided in class sets to each school, and by meeting the high school authors and illustrators to learn about the creative writing and illustrating project.
Congratulations to all teachers and students for creating a transcendent and timely work that encapsulates what it means to be an explorer. Especially notable is your resilience and ability to transcend the difficulties of the pandemic to create this work. Thank you to everyone who has been involved in this project and promoted the empowerment of student voices. We hope that The Laurel Highlands Explorers entertains and inspires everyone to embrace their own unique characteristics, to celebrate their innate curiosity, and to foster a sense of responsibility for preserving the interconnected aspects of our world in our human journeys, for our wildlife and wild places, and in concert with our changing planet.
Credits:
JAHA Forest Hills Elementary School Bishop McCort Greater Johnstown School District