It was a Grade 10 history class that 15-year-old Josh Heritage isn’t soon to forget.

Heritage, along with 23 other Brookfield High School students in Ottawa, swapped out his history textbooks for artifacts from the Canadian War Museum’s First World War collection as part of the official launch of a free nationwide program called Supply Line.

Ottawa students try on artifacts from a First World War Discovery Box.

PHOTO: ELLEN O’CONNOR

“All of us will probably remember this experience for quite a long time,”  said Heritage, as he modelled a replication of a Mark I helmet during the launch on Oct. 9. “You always eventually forget something you read in a textbook, but you can’t forget wearing a soldier’s helmet, an aviator’s scarf, a sling or a soldier’s gas mask.”

The Canadian War Museum, with funding from Operation Veteran and individual donors, created Supply Line to commemorate the centenary of the First World War and promote a hands-on learning experience in classrooms across the country.

Called First World War Discovery Boxes, the travelling trunks can be rented for a two-week period at no cost. Each contains 22 authentic and replica items such as posters, small arms ammunition, a service dress cap and jacket and a small-box respirator or gas mask. The 25 boxes also include contextual photos as well as lesson plans and background documents for teachers to follow and adapt for Grades 4 to 12.

The boxes contain 22 authentic and replica items from the First World War.

PHOTO: ELLEN O’CONNOR

“This is actually the first time I’ve seen it in action so I’m incredibly pleased,” said learning specialist Sandra O’Quinn of the war museum. “It’s really nice to see the kids looking closely, examining the objects, really putting themselves in the place of the soldiers or the Canadians who participated in the First World War.”

O’Quinn said that reservations for the boxes began Sept. 16 and within days, hundreds of requests began flooding in from as far east as New Brunswick to as far west as British Columbia.

The classroom was a flurry of activity as students eagerly tried on dress jackets and hats, a gas mask and a nursing sister’s apron, pausing only as the ear-piercing sound of a replica gas alarm rattle filled the air—and without a doubt echoed through the school’s hallways. They then put on their historic thinking caps as they examined the artifacts and answered questions on an accompanying worksheet.

“We know that the hat is a replica because of the new sticker and new cloth, but the badge is authentic because its rusty and old,” said Manuel Lebron, holding up a wool service dress cap decorated with a general list cap badge, a standard badge worn by soldiers of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, intended to distinguish Canadian soldiers from their British counterparts. “We know that this hat is standard for all the allies, but the badge itself is different for every country. We also know you don’t wear it at war because you wear a helmet instead, you just wear it with a uniform so everyone can see it because it looks nice.”

Meanwhile, across the classroom, Liam Fairbairn pressed his eye up to a trench periscope, an optical device used by soldiers to observe the ground from within their trenches.  “When you look in it, it has a bunch of mirrors so it reflects. You can see if the artillery has stopped so the men can safely go over the top, or if the enemy is coming, the men can start to shoot,” he explained.

Liam Fairbairn peers through a trench periscope.

PHOTO: ELLEN O’CONNOR

Aside from the handful of history buffs who grace every classroom, most students are only vaguely familiar with the world wars and Canada’s other historic conflicts. The living memory is vanishing, too.

The First World War veterans are gone and there remain alive fewer and fewer veterans from the Second World War.

One person who has made it his mission to perpetuate the memory of Canadian veterans and their contributions is Dr. Paul Kavanagh, founder of Operation Veteran, a program launched in 2009 in association with the Canadian War Museum to provide complimentary meals to veterans visiting the museum. It has since expanded to offer educational programs to teach military history to students.

“Right now kids go home and they have these three-dimensional TVs…an Xbox to play war games and it’s nothing but fun for them,” said Kavanagh, who supports Supply Line with money raised through Operation Veteran. “Kids go to school today and they’re bored. They open their books and memorize a chapter for a test next week.”

The beauty of Supply Line, he said, is that now schoolchildren have something to work with that’s three dimensional—they can feel the weight of a helmet or read a letter a young soldier wrote to his mother. “We’re reaching back 100 years in time and helping our veterans come back to life again.”

To learn more about the Supply Line program or to book a discovery box, visit www.warmuseum.ca/supplyline.