Tontitown Arkansas has a rich Italian Catholic History. Each year there is a grape festival held at St. Joseph's Catholic Church. Not all people who attend the festival go to the church but it seems that everyone who lives in the area attends either 1 or all 5 days of the event. In 2017 the stone church of St. Joseph’s was torn down except for the steeple which can still be viewed today on the corner of Henri De Tonti Blvd and Barrington Road. Many people wonder why the steeple was left in place so we decided to do some research to find out why. We have started to create a history box for the local museum so people could find out more about it. This history box would be able to be viewed in the museum, checked out to people to take home or brought into a classroom for exploration. Our goal is to include a model of the original church along with a brief history and an activity for children to build their own out of some materials provided.
C - Why was the steeple left standing? People say so there could be a nice place for pictures, events and eventually a nice garden. We learned that there was a very big reason why the steeple was left while the original church was torn down.
A - Student growth was shown in learning Sketchup through tutorials & guidance from the architects at Core Architects. Also through increased engagement in the project after visiting the museum and learning from the artifacts and curator.
R - Client = Tontitown Museum, Partners - Emily Pianalto, Tontitown Museum curator and Dusty Graham from Core Architect Firm. Students took a lot of interest in this project because many of them are related to the families highlighted throughout the history.
T - Teamwork was evident when students were learning the Sketchup software together. They also worked together when talking with the museum curator, asking questions, writing down notes, thinking of ideas of how to share the new information with our community.