Library and high school team up to help students

Students at Yarmouth Consolidated Memorial High School have greater access to resources materials for projects and posters thanks to a partnership between the school and Western Counties Regional Library.

Charles Andrews, a resource program support teacher, and Joanne Morton, a program support assistant, were at the library on Friday, Jan. 25 loading their car with boxes and boxes of old magazines and battered books no longer of use to the regional library.

“These are going to the students that need pictures and posters,” Morton explains as she loads up another carload of boxes.

Andrews says the materials will be used mainly by special needs students for projects requiring the use of images, photographs and pictures at the high school’s learning centre. There are audio learners and video learners who struggle to either write things down or to do an oral presentation in front of the class. By having access to visual materials, these students can overcome their challenges and do their presentations using creative posters.

“They would never be able to stand in front of a class and speak,” says Andrews. “But they can read.”

His says by cutting out the images and words from magazines and books, the students overcome their challenges in a creative way that completes the project requirements and meets the class outcomes.

Although the Internet could be a source of all kinds of images, Andrews says, not all students have the ability to use computers and not all students have access to computers.

“We don’t have colour printers,” he adds.

The material is a great source of high quality, colour images for all students.

The regional library is happy to see the materials find a new life that helps other.

“We would much rather see these materials re-used to benefit students rather than discarded,” says Trudy Amirault, the regional director of the library.