New program at Flight 93 National Memorial teaches young people about 9/11
SHANKSVILLE, Pa. (KDKA) -- New this year at the Flight 93 National Memorial is a program to reach more young people across the country. It's called Teach to Remember 9/11.
Thousands of students across the country watched the memorial Monday morning live in their classrooms through this educational program.
It's a somber day to remember the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001, but Gordon Felt is also uplifted by sharing the story of his brother, Edward Felt, who was a passenger on Flight 93, with young people around the country.
"If we talk about the individual passengers and crew, hopefully it will help them relate to the story, to know it could have been one of their parents or their grandparents or one of their teachers on the flight that day. And when it's personal, it's remembered and it's impactful and that's our goal," he said.
Eighteen-thousand students from more than 300 schools around the U.S. and two in Canada signed up to participate in Teach to Remember 9/11 and watch Monday's livestream of the ceremony.
Most are too far to travel here, but history teacher Andrew Barton is close enough and brought his students from Northern Bedford County High School.
"When we first started teaching this, a lot of kids could remember this, but these guys weren't born until years after this happened, so I think the more you can involve them in this, the better it is," Barton said.
The online tools include videos, a virtual tour of the memorial and primary source material from the black boxes, transcripts from the flight and first-hand accounts from that day.
"How did the FBI learn about what going on on board Flight 93? And who made the phone calls? And the story unfolds on Flight 93. How did passengers and crew figure out what was going on on the ground and decide to do something?" said Katie Hostetler, a public information officer for the Flight 93 National Memorial.
Schools can still sign up for Teach to Remember 9/11 online, as well as Write to Remember 9/11, a national writing prompt encouraging kids to apply the lessons of 9/11 to today's issues.
"The message and story of Sept. 11 is one we can't afford to lose and we should be considering the lessons learned that day every day," Felt said.
