This school year marked the beginning of the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science offering a class on “The Greatest Generation: World War II.” The course is taught by Julie Heintz, a history instructor, on Tuesdays and Thursdays during 1st period.

Senior Emily Williamson is taking the class this semester.

“I am taking the World War II class because, during my junior year at MSMS, I was one of the students who supported the class’s beginning,” said Williamson “Ms. Heintz proposed the idea in our U.S. History class and I jumped on board from the start because this war is such a large piece of our history, and the idea of an entire class dedicated to it sounded exciting.”

The course uses a variety of media: movies, newspapers and articles, to teach students about World War II. A key component of the course is its Fallen Heroes Project.

This project consists of students researching a Mississippian who fought in the war, writing a research paper about the subject and making a website that hosts the information.

Williamson is doing her project on Thomas W. Saucier from Lamar County.

“He was in the U.S. Army Air Forces, 32nd Bomber Squadron, 301st Bomber Group Heavy; and died valiantly on Nov. 2, 1943,” said Williamson.

Williamson is most excited about the research portion of the project.“It is really exciting to happen upon a new piece of information about Thomas that links some pieces together or just generally reveals more about him as a person,” said Williamson. “I feel like I’m really learning about someone’s life and that feeling is exciting.”

Instructor Heintz is equally excited about the course.

“I wanted to put the course in the curriculum because it’s an era of history that, when we reach it in a regular history class, we end up only spending a little bit of time studying it,” she said. “As adults, we always talk about how this group of men and women was the greatest generation, and how so many of them sacrificed their lives so that we could have the freedom we have today. I want to get that message across to the students.”

The students’ websites will be published and presented to the class at the end of the course.