Brett Kelley, Curator at the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA will be deducting two weeks from his vacation time, and be off from February 6th to the 20th. He’s not, however, really vacationing.
In the interest of raising funds for the education department of the museum, specifically for helping school districts pay for field trips to the museum and to pay for “virtual” electronic field trips for K12 students, Brett will be living the life of a Civil War picket soldier for the duration of his vacation time. He’ll be living in the large (heavily exposed) backyard of the impressive museum, living on rations, wearing the clothes, eating the hardtack, living the life.
In order to duplicate the very challenging schedule and responsibilities of a picket soldier, he’ll be spending several days a week on picket duty (similar to “watch” in the Navy). He’ll also be carrying out several ten mile marches to raise awareness of the Museum, and building a small winter quarters and wooden defenses.
My students and I quickly saw the tremendous social media potential of this event (Survivorman + Man vs. Wild + Prairie House) and organized ourselves, with the help of the Museum, into a social media platoon.
Brett will be keeping a handwritten journal (with sketches) of his experiences, interns at the Museum will be snapping photos, and making videos. All of this will presented to the world through daily updates on a WordPress blog, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on YouTube. All of these accounts will be linked.
So, through subscribing to our blog: Civil War Soldier 24/7, teachers and students will be able to follow his experiences from day to day. On Twitter, you can show your support by following @cwsoldier24_7 (we’ll follow you back!). On Facebook, you can friend Brett Kelley, and become a fan of the National Civil War Museum. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, but all of the media will be aggregated on our blog page. Each account is in the design phase for my students, so each account page should get prettier as we approach Brett’s vacation. Please spread the word!
Jan 19th by admin