BROWNSTOWN

With his father running tire shops in the area, Brayden Samples portrayed Charles Goodyear, who discovered the process of vulcanizing rubber.

Growing up on a farm, Grayson Vague dressed up like John Deere, who is famously known for his green and yellow tractors.

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Having a mother who is a nurse, Destiny Price chose to perfect a British accent in bringing the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale, to life.

They were among the 26 third-graders in Beth Shelton’s class at Brownstown Elementary School who recently participated in a wax museum project. In recent years, it has been the social studies culminating activity for the school year.

Shelton was impressed by the students’ efforts.

“It’s such a culminating experience,” she said. “They come into my room knowing that they are going to do the wax museum, so if I would ever not do it, I think I would have huge disappointment. They come in excited about it, ‘When are we going to start?’”

Once ISTEP testing is completed, she said the students go full fledged into researching the famous historical or present-day person they want to portray. They can read a book — or several books — and search the internet to get the information they want to include in their project.

Then they create a display board to include a biography, a hand-drawn portrait, a timeline, a word cloud, compare and contrast, a Venn diagram, an information sheet and a map.

The timeline includes at least 10 important events in the person’s lifetime, and the map shows places where they were born and lived and in some instances where they died.

The biography is written in third person, and they take some of the information and put it into a first-person speech for the day of the wax museum.

On May 7, the students — spread out in the school’s cafeteria and gymnasium — dressed up as the person they portrayed and stood next to their display board. Other students and teachers at the school and family members were invited to attend the event and press a paper button in front of each student to bring them to life.

“The memorization for some of them is the biggest hurdle because they’ve never had to memorize something that long, but they’ve done a really good job with it,” Shelton said.

It’s also a good lesson in public speaking.

“Some of them have lots of nerves about it, but they’ve really done well,” Shelton said. “I’ve watched all of them, and they’ve overcome those nerves.”

She also credited the parents for helping make the project a success.

“Their parents get into it,” Shelton said. “They were very instrumental in helping come up with some of their outfits and props. Each year, I let (the students) choose their character, so this year, I’ve got some new characters with things that they are interested in or their family.”

Brayden wore a shop apron and had a Goodyear tire and a framed picture with his display.

“Actually, my mom wanted me to pick him because my dad works at the tire shop, so she wanted me to be Charles Goodyear because he invented rubber,” he said.

Grayson said he grew up liking John Deere equipment, so it was fun wearing a denim apron and including a toy farm implement with his display.

“I was actually fascinated about how he got all of that steel because it wasn’t really that common around Illinois,” he said of Deere using steel as part of his equipment.

He said the most interesting fact about Deere was that he had nine kids.

“I liked learning about him because I know some stuff about him, but it’s fun to learn more stuff about him,” Grayson said.

Destiny decided to add a twist to her presentation by speaking with a British accent.

“It was easy,” she said, smiling.

She said it was interesting learning more about Nightingale and the work she did for others.

“She checked on the soldiers at night with her lamp,” Destiny said. “That was pretty cool.”

Other students portrayed people based on their interests.

Brady “Pip” Hallow wore a New York Yankees uniform and had a bat and a glove in portraying Babe Ruth.

“I love to play baseball, and he loved to play baseball, too,” said Brady, who has played the sport for four years.

Cori Bowers stood on a platform and spoke about gymnast Simone Biles and ended her speech demonstrating a move on a pad.

“I just really liked her interest in gymnastics, and I have that interest, too,” Cori said.

Eli Crockett’s love of nature is shared with the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt.

“I really like nature, and he was one of the presidents who really liked nature, too,” Eli said. “Whenever he was 8 or 9, he made a nature exhibit in the house where his parents lived.”

The students agreed the wax museum was a fun project.

“We get to learn a little more about people, and we get to dress up and have fun,” Brady said.

“I liked it because it gave me freedom to pick someone,” said Lauren King, who portrayed Cleopatra. “I thought it would be a nice opportunity to speak to other people.”