Mock First World War battle popular with Toronto students
Posted November 3, 2017 1:27 pm.
Last Updated November 3, 2017 7:15 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s a living history class that helps students learn — and have fun at the same time.
Every year, high school students from Toronto’s Central Toronto Academy run a simulated First World War “training camp” called the Trenches Experience to help teach younger kids about one of the greatest battles of the 20th century.
Grade 7 and 8 public school students are invited to participate in the simulated basic training camp. It begins with a dramatic re-enactment of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria — the event that started the war.
The students then learn some of the skills Canadian recruits developed and then put them into practice during a mock battle.
The high school students take on the roles of non-commissioned officers, teaching skills to their “recruits.”
“We have an above-ground trench made of canvas and poles that accurately simulates the structure of a (First World War) trench,” said Nicholas Armstrong, a staff advisors for the project.
“We hope that, by actually experiencing some of the basic training, (the students) get a little bit of an appreciation of what our soldiers went through in what was a terrible experience for all involved.”
