Prairie Central High School students have been visiting some fascinating places: cemeteries!

Andrew Quain, a teacher at PCHS and his human geography classes are involved in a cemetery mapping project to provide future generations with a database of gravestones that can be accessed online and provide valuable information that serves as a way to honor those who are gone, so they won’t be forgotten.

Quain was awarded an Eastern Illini Electric Cooperative 2018 Empowering Education Grant and he has used his grant funding to purchase supplies to continue the cemetery mapping that he began in the fall of 2015.

Quain strives to meet classroom education standards. In his human geography classes, that entails having students collect data and upload the information into interactive online cemetery maps. The maps let people search for a location and information about the graves in any of the eight cemeteries they’ve mapped so far. The students have entered data for almost 15,000 gravestones and have plans to continue to map all 21 cemeteries located in the Prairie Central school district. Their mapping includes geographic analysis and research about the individuals buried in the cemetery. The students use GPS devices to digitally plot the location of the gravestones by using waypoints that automatically upload to the maps.

The students really get into the mapping and are extremely engaged while researching the gravestones. They begin by looking for a name, determining the date of birth and death, figuring out if the gravestone is part of a family plot, and if they were a veteran who served in the military. From there they question the cause of death and observe inscriptions on the gravestones that denote beliefs, social class, occupation and other aspects of the life of the deceased.

The students are extremely respectful of the cemetery and reverent towards the gravestones. They often adjust memorabilia placed at the gravestone by loved ones that has been blown over by the wind. They brush off the grass clippings that cover the site from the last time the lawn mower passed by and they straighten the military insignia that adorns the area.

As a supplemental project related to cemetery mapping, Quain and his students identify veterans’ graves that are damaged. They are doing additional research regarding the veterans’ graves and making arrangements to replace the damaged gravestones with historically accurate new stones.

Some of the students have found graves of family members. The student’s research has encouraged them to ask questions of their parents and grandparents regarding their family history to discover details about past generations.

There’s a long-standing assumption that cemeteries are creepy and depressing places, but geography students at PCHS have a very different perspective. They see them as outdoor museums that provide a wealth of information about the past that can be shared with future generations and appreciated by members of the community.

The ultimate goal of cemetery mapping is to preserve the history of the area and share it with generations to come. For more information visit http://www.prairiecentral.org/highschool/geography-class-cemetery-proje….