Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History

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Contents

Overview

Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History Main Page
"We need your help!A team of historians have been trying to solve some historical "cold cases" -- old crimes in which the guilty ones walked, and even more insidious crimes where a whole village may have been complicit." (Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History)

Originally conceived by Ruth Sandwell and John Lutz at the University of Victoria, the project started with the site "Who killed William Robinson?". Thesite introduced the project's standard format. By assemblingand transcribing all the key documents surrounding a historicalcold case the site served two purposes: first, to act as a virtualarchive; second, to draw students??? interest into Canadian historyand archival research with the promise of solving historical coldcrimes. The format is less about finding the right answer thanimproving students??? critical thinking and research skills.Ideally, these skills should include critical reading, criticalanalysis/thinking, understanding different points of view and theability to think historically.

In 2003 the project received funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage to create two new mystery archives ("We Do Not Know His Name: Klatsassin and the Chilcotin War" and "Aurore: The Mystery of the Martyred Child"). Since then, additional funding has allowed them to expand into nine other mysteries and their sister site, MysteryQuests, for shorter, age specific mysteries.

Each mystery site has a staff working on it comprised offunders, researchers, technical specialists, instructionalspecialists, translators, editors and administrators. Themystery's staff and the institutions drawn from are credited intheir respective mystery's "About Us" page.

Audience

The primary audience of the project is students as it wasdesigned for educational purposes. Students are put in the positionof ???detective??? in order to entertain and educate them. Thesite's aim is to make history interesting through a funpremise. By giving students the context and documents available tohistorians, it not only engages them with the raw material but itencourages them to make and defend their own interpretedhistories.

The site operates on four main levels but the level to whichteachers push students depends on their skills. The first twolevels - first, Reading and Understanding Primary Documents;second, Exploring the Social History of Canadian Society - areaccessible to grade school and junior high students. Levelthree-Doing History, is aimed at junior-undergrad students and four(What is History and How Can We Know It?) is aimed atsenior-undergrads and grad students.

The project provides extensive materials for teachers to adaptthe site's materials. Materials range from teachers guides,activities and briefing sheets, discussions, summaries offoundational ideas behind the site, pre-made advertisements, andpasswords to the historians' interpretations sections.

Analysis

As an educational tool the project has proved effective and itswork has been lauded. Since its creation, the project has wonnumerous honours, awards, and recommendations and has been reviewedby organizations, journals, and teachers' organizations. Theproject also continues to expand with class implementation,workshops, presentations, a free electronic newsletter, and socialmedia.

However, as a virtual archive the project is lacking. Thoughoriginal texts have been made available through transcription theinformation has been simplified for educational entertainment. Someof the transcriptions are incomplete or even altered slightly tofit the transcriber's interpretation, leaving the task offinding the original unedited documents to the viewer. Even lookingfor information within the site's available sources isdifficult, as they are sorted primarily according to 'clueunits'.

Limited accessibility has also privileged information toteachers or eligible others. Each site is accessible and thesite's sources are listed but potentially useful information islocked to teacher logins. In order to view the historians'interpretation sections or support materials (teachers??? guides,evaluations, briefing sheets...) a viewer must submit a request tothe project staff. The request form asks for specific informationand they may choose to verify with the viewer's school ororganization. For project staff and teachers these steps could beuseful. The project's staff uses the information to get a feelfor the range of courses and teachers using the site and theteachers may be notified of major changes in the sites orpasswords. For other users, for educational or entertainment oralternative purposes, it is limiting.

External Links

Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History Website

Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History: Mystery Quests Website

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