This week, Ms. Daigle’s classes had a trench warfare simulation activity in U.S. History. World War 1 was a trenches war, and in the early War of Movement in 1914, artillery and machine guns forced the armies on the Western Front to dig trenches to protect themselves. So her class acted it out. They divided into two teams and both sides were provided with balled-up pieces of paper. The goal is to capture the enemy trench, so students must get from their trench to the opposing trench to win. Teams must come up with a plan to capture the opposing trench, so planning is key to winning.

The trench war was a very important part of U.S. History. Approximately 8.5 million men were killed, and twice as many were wounded. Many people were handicapped for life from the war. The sad part is that sometimes entire battles were fought for only a few hundred yards of territory. One of the many tragedies of the war is the casualties and poor leadership often led to extremely low morale among troops. Cassandra Coolidge, a junior from Ms. Daigle’s said, “I enjoyed building the trench replica in class because it was something fun and new for our class to do.” Ms. Daigle wants her classes to be able to learn and visualize the trench war so it can be a better experience for her class first and for most. Watch: Life in the Trenches