My Adopted Soldier

Founded in 2014, the ‘My Adopted Soldier’ project is an online education tool for history classrooms that seeks to create meaningful connections to history. The platform is a collaborative space that guides students through the process of researching and creating a digital archive on their ‘Adopted’ soldier. These often involve stories that have never been told, and were curated by students often of a similar age to those soldiers they are remembering. Participants of the first projects delivered in 2015 and 2017 had the opportunity to ‘adopt’ a soldier of the First World War, and to travel to that individual soldier's graveside or memorial. In many cases, students became the first visitors to travel from the soldiers' home to their graveside. Created by our students, we now have a permanent digital archive that includes stories of Irish soldiers, British soldiers and German soldiers, as well as the accounts of nurses and civilians during the conflict. The project allowed each student to outline their experiences throughout the process of research and commemoration. The venture was self-funded by the founders, developers and participants, and now continues as a Transition Year education project in Irish schools.