Two Brock professors are hoping to use history to bring students and the Niagara community together.

To help make that happen, a public event will be held Saturday, April 6 at the Niagara Military Museum in Niagara Falls. The History Lab Student Day: Beyond the Classroom will focus on how students can connect their classroom learning to the community around them.

Participants will explore opportunities for involvement in research projects, volunteering in the community and doing community outreach work.

The day will feature guided tours of the Battle of Lundy’s Lane historical site and the Niagara Falls Military Museum and armoury building, as well as an optional escape room experience. There will also be workshops on wartime baking and doing archival research.

The event is a collaboration between The History Lab, Seedling for Change in History and the Niagara Military Museum.

Seedling for Change in History is a Brock collective of researchers and student ‘researchers-in-training’ working on history projects that engage with the local community, says founder Maria Suescun Pozas, an associate professor of History.

“We bring students and communities together,” says Suescun Pozas. “We want to recognize and celebrate the roots of the peoples who reside in the Niagara region and help them tell their stories.”

As an organization, The History Lab seeks to “deepen and broaden the public’s knowledge and understanding of Niagara’s military history in national and global perspectives,” says Elizabeth Vlossak, a founding fellow of The History Lab and an associate professor with the Department of History.

Seedling for Change in History has organized transportation for Brock students to the event. A bus will leave Glenridge A building at 10:30 a.m. and return at 4 p.m.

Members of the Brock University Historical Society (BUHS) student group and the Brock University undergraduate history journal The General have also been involved in the event’s planning process.

The History Lab Student Day is free and open to members of the public. Anyone wishing to participate should pre-register on Eventbrite.

The History Lab, which is celebrating its first anniversary, came out of Seedling for Change in History and is a collaboration between Vlossak, Suescun Pozas and the Niagara Military Museum. The History Lab seeks to support community projects that expand the history of the Niagara region and to connect people working on those projects with professional historians. Currently, The History Lab is working with the Niagara Military Museum and the Royal Niagara Military Institute.

Vlossak and Suescun Pozas are Founding Fellow Associates and research fellows of the History Lab, which is a partnership between the Niagara Military Museum and Seedling for Change in Society and the Environment, also founded by Suescun Pozas.

What: The History Lab Student Day 2019
When: Saturday, April 6, 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Niagara Falls Military Museum
Please note that entry to the building requires navigating stairs as there is no elevator.