Kelvin High School Students Code and Animate, "A Girl, Called Echo"

Students and teachers at Kelvin High School are taking history lessons to a whole new level by combining storytelling and coding.  

Kelvin students helped technology teacher James Young create a unique learning experience based on Katherina Vermette's graphic novel series, 'A Girl Called Echo' that will allow others to combine coding skills with Metis history.           

"We're excited to build on the momentum from last year's professional development workshops," explains James Young, Teacher of Mathematics and Robotics. 

"In those workshops, organized by Taking IT Global, teachers delved into the graphic novel 'The Secret Path' using the Lynx Coding platform. They even created short animations of sections from the book, incorporating images and audio by Gord Downey."

Lynx Coding is a free, user-friendly platform that allows educators and learners to create short animations using images and audio. It's a fantastic way to combine storytelling with computational thinking skills.

This year, the team of educators decided to focus on Red River Metis history. With guidance from Indigenous Education advisor, Rina Whitford and STEAM Program Lead Dorothy Goddard, they chose "A Girl Called Echo" as their inspiration. The series follows a young Métis girl named Echo who travels back in time and witnesses firsthand the experiences of her ancestors. 

Over several months, James worked with other team members of Kelvin High School, including Myles Burdeniuk, an animation/graphic design teacher, Chelsea Favelle, the Indigenous Grad Coach, and two students, Kyra Allen-Erichsen and Luca Morin. Taking IT Global provided funding for the school division to acquire use of the assets from Portage & Main Press.

Kyra and Luca played a crucial role in selecting key scenes for animation, ensuring they captured both historical moments and offered opportunities for engaging visuals.

Myles Burdeniuk, the school's animation and graphic design teacher, meticulously "cut out" the chosen assets from the graphic novel. James Young then took the lead in coding five different sample scenes, creating a valuable resource for future projects.

The project's impact goes beyond Kelvin High School. On May 1, WSD hosted a workshop where Kyra and Luca shared their experience with educators from across the division. Teachers even got to try animating a paddlewheel boat on the Red River!

The project ‘A Girl Called Echo’ is nearing completion, and soon, these animation templates will be freely available to all teachers and students in Canada through the Lynx Coding platform.

Kyra, a Grade (ABC) student, reflected on her participation, saying, "Working on 'A Girl Called Echo' was like discovering a whole new way of creating art. It was challenging to present to adults in education, but I'm grateful for the teachers who helped us and encouraged us to participate."

“On June 6, our special team of James Young, Luca, Sam Duncan, (an Industrial Arts teacher from Kelvin), and Clara Kusumoto (a WSD support teacher) presented the workshop to several middle-year classes at the WSD Pow Wow event. We also challenged the students to complete the animation,” said Dorothy Goddard, STEAM program lead. 

Teachers or students looking to get more information about the project before it is published later this year can contact James Young at jayoung@wsd1.org. When it is released, teachers will have another opportunity to learn more and support students across disciplines.