Exciting new project gives kids a bird's eye view of WW1 and 2

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Students at Sir Robert Hitcham’s Primary School
in Suffolk write their secret wartime message.

Do something special for this year's centenary of World War 1 with an innovative interactive session demonstrating the extraordinary role pigeons played in Britain's victory by carrying secret messages home from the battlefields.

Carrier pigeons played a vital role in both World War 1 and 2 as they proved a reliable method of sending and receiving messages from the battlefields - in fact, their delivery success rate was a whopping 95%! 

Just in time for this year's centenary of WW1, a new educational project has been launched to offer schoolchildren across the UK the opportunity to learn about the pigeons' important and dangerous work.

The project, dubbed 'Secret Messages', will teach children how to write a simple coded message and demonstrate how pigeons carried them during the wars.

Pigeons in the war

A student from Sir Robert Hitcham's holds
the homing pigeon before it is released.

During World War II, over a quarter of a million pigeons were donated by British fanciers to help in the war effort. Once the war was over, pigeon racing was resumed, however their contribution to the war effort did not go unnoticed, with 32 of the 62 Dickin medals awarded to date going to carrier pigeons.

The very first pigeon to win the Dickin medal was Royal Blue who won the medal 'for being the first pigeon in this war to deliver a message from a forced landed aircraft on the continent while serving with the RAF in October 1940'. Royal Blue was donated by the King, illustrating the Royal families’ strong connection with pigeon racing since the late 1890s. To this day, there is a loft at Sandringham and Her Majesty the Queen is now a patron of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association.

British history has seen many patrons who strove to make our country a better and safer place. However, many forget that the humble homing pigeon played an enormous role in emergencies during both the World Wars and still give great benefits to fanciers today.

Donna Beard, who delivers the lessons to the schoolchildren, said: “We have had a really positive response to taking pigeons into schools in the past, which is why we feel that the Secret Messages project will be of great value to children and their teachers alike. Children enjoying handling the birds and learning to write their own secret messages will help to bring the importance of these birds’ contribution. What a great tribute to all involved in WW1 and WW2.”

How the Secret Messages project works

1. Pupils write their secret message on a piece of paper. This could be a simple message using simple Caesar cipher. This could be further developed by generating a message using a virtual Enigma Machine Emulator. 
2. Pupils place their message into a canister attached to the pigeon’s leg.
3. Pupils are taught how to hold the pigeon and then release their bird from an experienced pigeon fancier. Soldiers would have had to learn this skill.
4. The homing pigeon is released and sets off for home carrying the message back to the code breakers at Kingsmead School.
5. When the bird arrives home the message is taken from the canister and the message is decoded as fast as possible by a team of code breakers. 
6. The decoded message along with the original coded message is photographed by a smartphone or iPad/tablet and emailed to the person or school. 
7. Following the experience, pupils can research a range of different investigations and win some fantastic prizes.

Sounds exciting? Get your school involved!
Schools are able to apply to for an experienced handler to visit with a small team of homing pigeons. The Secret Messages project is available to all children of all ages in the UK and is a free service.

For more information or to book a Secret Messages session for your school, visit secretmessages.org.uk.

PLUS! Visit flyingbacktonature.com to view and download a range of teaching resources and lesson plans on pigeons, secret messages and World War 1.

Donna helps students release their bird and send
their secret message on its way!

Secret Messages was launched on July 8th 2014. The project is a collaboration between the Midlands National Flying Club and the Royal Pigeon Racing Association.

Top 5 websites for teaching about conflict and genocide

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(Image: bbc.co.uk)

August 2014 will mark the centenary of the start of World War I - the bloodiest human conflict the world had ever known. The theme of conflict and by extension, genocide, is on many minds. Have we learnt anything in the last 100 years?

Apparently not. Wars and genocides killed nearly 170 million people during the twentieth century,  and many more since.This makes for a sensitive subject, and one that poses many challenges when working out how to broach the subject in the classroom.

How do we make learning about genocide lively and engaging for students of all ages and abilities? How do we do this and still retain the respect such a subject deserves? And the big one – how do we make such horrific events relevant and meaningful to our students? After all, the death toll is merely that – a figure – and it can be very easy to detach ourselves from dry facts and long lists of statistics.

We've picked out what we think are the best 5 websites for teaching about conflict and genocide. A key theme threading its way through each and every one of them is that conflict and genocide is not at all a thing of the past. It’s happening now, it’s relevant to all of us, and there are things that we, as teachers, students and ordinary human beings, can do. 

It’s a lovely approach to take when teaching about war and conflict, and as well as a range of teaching tools, there are plenty of practical ideas on these sites for awareness-raising activities and initiatives that students might be motivated to set up in their own schools.

1. British Red Cross
The teaching section of this site is very philosophically inclined – most of the resources are aiming to develop students’ questioning and critical thinking skills.

You’ll find lesson plans, assembly kits and a whole array of multimedia resources. Some of it is less relevant to conflict and genocide, but there are some fantastic lesson plans for a range of age groups, covering subjects such as:

• prisoners of war
• war crimes trials
• the 2011 UK riots
• child soldiers
• refugees (for both secondary and primary)
• terrorism.

There are some very poignant and compelling images here – great discussion starters.

Also worth a look is the 'Quick activities' section, which features a variety of unusual lesson starters and activities, including charming your way through a hostile checkpoint in a troubled country, exploring daily life in a war zone, and an interesting discussion on acting with humanity  and morality during war.

2. Children of Conflict
An offshoot of the BBC’s World Service, Children of Conflict is an awareness-raising initiative, and as such, aims to shock. It focuses on the stories of children who have lived and are still living through wars and conflict - in particular, child soldiers, lost children, wounded children, children running households (generally orphans with younger siblings) and child workers.

The information in each of the main sections is direct and simply put. A child with only moderate literacy skills would have no problem navigating the site and reading the information. You’ll also find quotes and stories from children all over the world here, all in the child’s own words, translated directly and shocking in their simplicity.

The majority of quotes are from school-age children between the ages of ten and 17, which should make them all the more thought-provoking and relevant to our students. It might encourage them to ask, ‘What would I do in their shoes? How would I feel? How could I cope?’

3. Hiroshima Remembered
A fantastic resource for any project or research assignment on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this website tells the story right from the testing of the bombs all the way through to the Japanese surrender and beyond

There’s a substantial number of photographs, a couple of maps and a few short video clips of the explosion and its aftermath. You'll also find a selection of brief biographies of those behind the design, testing and dropping of the bombs – very useful, as the articles themselves don’t waste much time explaining who’s who.

If your students are investigating whether the bombings can be justified, then the 'Historical Documents' section is especially worth pointing them towards. In it, you’ll find a compilation of documents, including lead nuclear researcher Leo Svilard's petition to the president arguing against using his newly developed atomic weapon on innocent civilians, the White House press release on the Hiroshima bombings, and the personal reflections of President Harry Truman on giving the order to drop the bombs. A lot of interesting and thought-provoking resources here – the highlight of the site as far as we're concerned.

4. A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
A must visit for teachers of all key stages – and students too.

(Image: thephilanews.com)

Aside from pages and pages of facts, figures, eyewitness accounts, photographs and lesson plans, you'll also find a massive compilation of multimedia resources such as photographs, video clips, music, maps, bibliographies and more.

Highlights include hundreds of primary source documents related to the Holocaust, and a collection of virtual reality movies. These virtual reality movies – essentially interactive panoramas – will take you and your class on a virtual tour around concentration camps, Nazi ghettoes and Holocaust war memorials. Especially poignant are the images from Majdanek camp and killing centre, which lead you through the final journey of the Nazi’s many gassing victims – beginning with the undressing room and ending in the crematorium. 

For many students, the Holocaust is a difficult thing to comprehend – these panoramas are an effective way to make it real, and might also stimulate some interesting responses through creative writing, drama or music.

5. Rwandan Stories
A striking site, Rwandan Stories traces the history of the Rwandan Genocide right from its origins, all the way through to the nation’s recent and rocky recovery.

The articles are clearly organised and categorised, and the information included is extensive.
There are some stunning photographs here, and a large number of fantastic video clips, the majority of which are around two to three minutes long, making them perfect for a classroom setting.

Highlights include ‘My friend the killer’, the firsthand account of a young woman who became friends with one of the interahamwe militia, and ‘A good man’, in which a young Rwandan man who lost over fifty family members during the genocide, recounts his grandfather’s murder.

The site is full of stories like these, and not only from journalists, relief workers and victims of the genocide either. The most interesting and unique aspect of this site is that it includes stories from those who participated in the genocide too – the killers. 

Their tales of brutal murder are chilling, but reading through, you realise that they are people too. It’s a sobering thought, and has such potential for deep exploration, especially with older students, providing a fantastic starting point for all sorts of philosophical enquiries into morality, prejudice and dehumanisation.

The killers speak
(Image: rwandanstories.org)