Photo project helps Prairie Creek students connect with neighborhood

Walker Halapua, 10, has lived in Ely his whole life, but he never had looked closely at the side of the Post Office building on the corner of Main and Dows street before the morning of Wednesday, March 2, 2010.

The brick surface of the old building is completely covered with names that have been carved into it over the years.

“I've never seen that before, it's so amazing,” he said as he lifted his camera to snap a picture.

Halapua's classmates from Prairie Creek Intermediate School, each armed with a camera, were scattered around downtown Ely looking for other visually interesting landmarks to capture on film.

The school expedition is part of a project for Prairie Creek fifth and sixth-graders to help them learn more about the neighborhoods where they live.

Because schools in the College Community district are all on one central district, the students at Prairie Creek come from communities ranging from southwest Cedar Rapids to Shueyville. The school used to assign each student hometown a number.

This project is part of an effort to move away from that approach and get more in touch with the local communities, according to teacher Staci Callahan.

“We used to call them ‘neighborhood 61, 62, 63' and we wanted something more meaningful for the kids,” Callahan said.

After a week of conducting research on important local landmarks during their homeroom and extension periods, the students voted on the locations they wanted to profile, which included the Czech Village, Macbride Raptor Project, Honey Creek Farms and downtown Fairfax and Ely.

It was particularly important for Callahan that her students spend some time taking a closer look at the Czech Village.

“Not only is it part of our community, but it was also greatly impacted by the flood,” she said.

It was the favorite part of the project for sixth-grader Chaz Fields, 12, who spent a lot of time researching the area before his class's visit.

“It has lots of beautiful amazing glasswork and lots of great architecture and nice people,” he said.

In order to execute their pictorial expeditions, the students teamed up with photographer Bob Campagna, Prairie Creek's current artist-in-residence. Campagna has been teaching photography to students of all ages for more than 30 years, and helped the students understand photographic concepts such as reflection, shadow, composition and contrast.

Most of the students were experienced in the basic use of cameras, but many had never seen analog film cameras such as the ones Campagna brought in for the students to use. Campagna said it was important that the students use film in order to get a better appreciation for photography and its history.

“[Film] requires a higher-level of attention,” he said. “The end result is a black and white emulsion that has a higher quality to them.”

Students currently are working on developing their photos in a dark room set up at Prairie Creek. The finished pictorial will be displayed during parent-teacher conferences later this month and at The Carl & Mary Koehler History Center in Cedar Rapids this summer.