by Rebeca Aguilar
The world geography classes Ms. Hawkins and Mrs. Hauptman teach have been learning about Russia and the Russian Revolution. They have been talking about Nicholas and Alexandra Romanov, but society may be more familiar with Anastasia from the cartoon movie. Nicholas and Alexandra were parents to Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei, and they were the last Emperors of Russia. One of the topics the class talked about was how Gustav Faberge created furniture and started a tradition for the Romanov family, Nicholas and Alexandra and their girls. Gustav would design a different jewel egg every year in Easter time and he would present it to them as a gift for the Orthodox Church in which Easter is very important.
The project the students needed to create included researching Gustav Faberge and his connection with the Romanov family. They needed to recreate eggs using either sugar, sugar string eggs, or actually sugar mold eggs which the students had the option to choose how and what materials they wanted to use to decorate. There were around 180- 200 eggs on campus when the students completed the project. This is the first year the students have done the Faberge eggs. The teachers are trying to give them more insight on these eggs and the significance of what has become really important to Russia, costumes, traditions, and the Orthodox Church.
According to Mrs. Hauptman, the activity took longer than most projects because it could not be completed in an hour; it has to be completed in stages and they needed to submit the egg and do a research paper. The most impressive eggs might be shown in the library as decoration.
