Anne Frank Tree Exhibit

Anne Frank Tree Exhibit

Grant:
Instructional Development Fund (IDF)
Academic Year:
2014 - 2015 (June 1, 2014 through May 31, 2015)
Funding Requested:
$475.00
Project Dates:
-
Applicant(s):
toebosch
Overview of the Project:
In this experiential learning project, students in Dutch/Judaic 351 Anne Frank in Context visit the Anne Frank Tree Exhibit at the Detroit Holocaust Memorial Center. They will be in the presence of a sapling of the chestnut tree that Frank watched from her Amsterdam hiding place and described in her Diary. Afterward they will have a conversation with a Holocaust survivor. The combined experience builds a bridge to a far away time and place, and makes an unimaginable form of discrimination and persecution tangible and real to students.
Final Report Fields
Project Objectives:

Provide concrete information related to the Holocaust and Anne Frank

Project Achievements:

Student saw a sapling of the tree that Anne Frank describes in her Diary. No amount of reading and viewing of footage can equal this type of tangible exposure. The same was true for student standing in a cattle car, or talking to a survivor.

Continuation:
No
Dissemination:
A colleague joined us on the trip and assessed the usefulness of this type of learning for her own teaching of the Holocaust. I have shared my experiences with this excursion with many other colleagues.
Advice to your Colleagues:
This type of experiential learning reinforces what students learn in class. I have students comment on it years later. They also mention that they feel they lack hands-on learning at UM. I have yet to find a successful way of using the museum guide. the tours are too simplistic for students with the background my students have; Yet their individual walking around can become too un-directed.
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