Students at the Minnesota Transitions Charter High School and Elementary School explored history through animation working on a project this year with Teaching Artist John Akre. They made a stop-motion animated documentary that traces the history of the High School’s location near Lake and Minnehaha from prairie to the present.
The school, sited next to a Target store, is in a building that once was home to a mall, and before that, was the site of a massive farm implement factory.
Over the winter and spring, the students at the high school developed a story and paper cut-out props and characters which they animated, and then edited the film together with narration, music and sound effects. The elementary school students animated some additional scenes.
The students and Akre also created a documentary to show how the animated film was created. The project was supported by an Art Learning Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.
The film that the students made is above, and here is the documentary about the making of the project:
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