UWL project helps charter school students reimagine local history through virtual reality

UWL project helps charter school students reimagine local history through virtual reality

The most meaningful lessons about the world begin close to home, says Lisa Lenarz, UW-La Crosse associate professor of art.

"To teach globally, you have to start in the backyard - teaching what is most impactful for the students," she explains.

This local lens provides a bridge to help students access global histories from their own communities.

This fall, eighth graders at La Crosse Polytechnic are exploring that kind of local lesson with help from Hear, Here, a La Crosse-based oral history project that preserves the experiences and perspectives of local people from diverse backgrounds.

With Insta360 cameras and Apple Vision Pro headsets, La Crosse Polytechnic students are capturing 360-degree views of locations featured in Hear, Here. Their footage will eventually become part of a virtual reality (VR) experience, allowing people to explore the places where these stories unfolded, even if they cannot visit La Crosse in person.

The project represents another step in the evolution of Hear, Here, which UWL history professor Ariel Beaujot and her students launched in 2015. What began with 28 local stories accessible by calling a toll-free number posted on orange signs in downtown La Crosse has grown to include more than 200 stories over the past decade.

The project has expanded into new areas of La Crosse and embraced different forms of storytelling, including site-specific poetry, visual elements and educational resources.

Beaujot describes Hear, Here as "a living community resource" that continues to attract new collaborators, stories and ideas. In addition to the emerging VR component, the project has inspired annual scavenger hunts, library-led walking tours, photography exhibits and Pokémon stops. It has also served as a model for similar projects in communities around the world.

Connecting history and education

UWL's School of Education became involved in Hear, Here years ago when education students began developing curriculum packages to accompany selected oral history stories on the project's website. The free teaching materials allow educators and others to use Hear, Here more readily as a resource for teaching and learning.

For Lenarz, the opportunity to develop lessons for real teachers and classrooms helped her students understand the practical implications of their work. They researched Hear, Here stories, selected one to explore and developed lesson plans based on needs local teachers had identified.

The experience also reinforced the value of a more holistic approach to teaching - one that brings together multiple voices and perspectives rather than relying on a single authority to deliver information.

Rather than following the traditional "sage on the stage" model, Hear, Here encourages educators and students to learn from the experiences of people throughout the community, says Lenarz.

"It forces people to reach out into the community and collaborate and bring perspectives of other people that may not be represented in the traditional narrative," Lenarz says.

That emphasis on collaboration helped build the groundwork for the project's latest partnership with La Crosse Polytechnic.

When Bethany Nugent, a technology integration specialist at La Crosse Polytechnic, approached Lenarz about having eighth graders contribute to Hear, Here, Lenarz and Beaujot met with her to discuss the school's vision.

Expanding Hear, Here through VR offered a way to engage students with history that is relevant to their own community, Nugent says.

"Their footage will allow viewers to take in and understand how La Crosse has - or hasn't - progressed regarding the social justice and historical context that have been highlighted in Hear, Here," she explains.

Seeing stories in place

La Crosse Polytechnic students began filming at Hear, Here locations last year and continued the work this fall. Once filming is complete, they plan to integrate the original audio stories with video footage of the locations. The videos will eventually be available to the public through an Apple Vision Pro app or website.

"We are hoping that by adding in the virtual reality component, we will be able to share the Hear, Here La Crosse experience with anyone globally who has an Apple Vision Pro. adding continuity to the stories already shared about the La Crosse community," says Jason Krug, a project-based learning teacher at La Crosse Polytechnic.

The technology could make the project more impactful and accessible to a wider audience by allowing people to experience the physical setting of a story without having to travel there, says Jourdan Stacey, program development and outreach specialist for UWL's School of Education.

VR offers another opportunity: showing how places change as history unfolds.

One example is a Hear, Here story featuring Dan Green at Riverside Park in La Crosse. The story explores his efforts to challenge racial stereotypes about Native Americans, particularly those represented by the "Big Indian," also known as the "Hiawatha" statue. The caricatured statue stood in Riverside Park for decades before its removal.

Polytechnic students could add a section showing what occupies the space today, including a garden and a statue of Betsy Thunder, a Ho-Chunk healer who provided medical care to Native Americans and white settlers in the 1800s. The addition would help viewers connect the original story with the park as it exists today, illustrating how a community's public spaces reflect changing perspectives and values.

Although the students have not yet completed the project, they are already gaining valuable insights, Nugent says.

"They are understanding the importance of spoken history and gaining an appreciation for how feeling and understanding an experience can go hand-in-hand," she says. "It has also been beneficial for them to learn more about our local community through the personal experiences of those who came before them."

A living story for the future

For Beaujot, one of the most rewarding aspects of Hear, Here has been watching the community make the project its own. People have found new ways to use the stories, develop related projects and connect with the places around them.

The stories preserve experiences from the past, including accounts of places and objects that no longer exist. They also help people consider what their community once was, what it is today and what it could become.

"Hear, Here is like a living story on our streets, that helps people connect with their place in a more profound way, and helps us understand our past present and future," Beaujot says. "That's a gift that not a lot of cities have, and that's, I think, why Hear, Here remains relevant."

Ensuring the project continues to grow, however, presents a challenge.

Although the concept is simple for users, maintaining Hear, Here requires ongoing work: collecting and editing stories, maintaining the phone system and securing monthly funding, which is set to run out by mid-June 2027 without more sponsors to keep it running. Beaujot oversees Hear, Here while working on several other new and ongoing history-related projects.

"It's a beautiful project because of its simplicity for the user, but for the maker it's quite involved and a bit complicated, and only a few people hold the full knowledge of how to do each step," she says.

While community members and organizations have created valuable extensions - from walking tours and educational programs to the new VR experience - sustaining the original project requires someone to learn and manage its underlying operations.

"What I hope for the future of Hear, Here is that someone or some group could learn the ins and outs of it so that it can continue on without my guidance, so that community members and others can continue to use it."

Contribute to Hear, Here

Hear Here has been funded for 12 years, but these grants are running out at the end of this year. The phone lines and computer system that support Hear, Here cost $1,500 a year. To contribute, contact the UWL Alumni & Friends Foundation to donate to the History Department development fund or contribute online.