Draw Me a Picture of a War Hero- Google Drawings Vietnam Research Project

Students will be directed to http://www.virtualwall.org/, where they will be asked to work through the tab labeled Information. Here, students should look for information regarding the Vietnam Wall, the Vietnam War, and the website in general.  Teachers should give students about ten minutes to explore this information. After students have had time to explore the site, teachers will ask students to visit the link labeled Find a Name. Under this link, students can research fallen veterans by city and state, so it is most relevant when teachers assign students locations most geographically central to that of their students. Teachers should visit the site beforehand to determine the criteria on which they would like students to focus and how they would like to assign individual servicemen. The servicemen documented on the site have a variety of information posted. Therefore, not all students will be able to locate all the same information. Teachers should take this into consideration when giving students specific criteria. Some suggested notions for students to research would be: name, date of birth, date of death, hometown, rank, location of death, the branch of service, picture, etc. Once students have been given the criteria, students will visit the site to research their assigned serviceman. Their goal will be to create a digital memorial for their assigned serviceman using Google Drawings. Students will present their memorials to classmates. Some students might even find information relevant to locating family members of their serviceman, allowing students to share their memorial with these families as well.