This Ignite session will be a quick overview of a project done between the Scugog Shores Museums and students at Port Perry High School during the Spring of 2012. A teacher from the high school approached the Museum with some archival documents found in their basement which the school wanted to donate. It was decided that this was a great opportunity to get students excited about their own history, to look into the lives of earlier students, like themselves, and to learn how and why the Museum preserves archival documents.

Students were taught how to accession, catalogue, and store archival documents, as well as given an opportunity to use these documents for individual research projects. Students then produced blogs revealing their research which will be posted on the Museum's website over consecutive weeks. It is hoped that these student written blogs will increase traffic to the Museum's new blog feature and create a new media "destination" for visitors to interact with the Museum.

Amy Barron has a PhD in Ancient History and Archaeology from the University of Toronto as well as a Certificate in Museum Studies from the OMA. She has worked in the museum field for twenty years at museums large and small, private and publically funded. Amy is presently serving as Curator for the Scugog Shores Museums and occasionally teaches at the University of Toronto. When not pursuing museum or academic work she likes to travel and has explored the history and archaeology of almost 30 diverse countries across five continents.

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