Who Killed the Apple

Personally, I have a great relationship with a professor or two in Nutrition. This is the second time I was invited into a Nutrition class. But, this is the first time I have considered myself a “performer” as much as an instructor. Why? I didn’t have the Archives to back me up. The class was too large to bring to the Archives. I had to go to them. I needed a new tactic. A performance was the answer—infotainment. I walked into the class prepared for a murder mystery show. It was the afternoon of 31 October.

“Historical research is similar to that of an investigation,” I told this research methods class. “So, today we are going to undertake [laughter] a murder mystery.” Then, I dramatically removed a cloth that was draped over the following crime scene…

“The question is, Who killed the apple [long pause] industry in the Annapolis Valley?” More laughter followed.

Remember this was a nutrition class, so I needed to link in nutrition somehow. First though, I briefly proved that the Valley was once full of orchards by showing then/now images of places they recognized. Then, I lined up unlikely suspects such as the witch in Snow White, Isaac Newton, etc. Using primary and secondary sources, we discussed the history of the apple, its nutritional value or the loss thereof as a suspect, and the varieties of apples. Eventually, after looking at historical images of farming equipment, cartoons about Maritime Rights, diaries, posters, government reports, and newspapers, a possible ‘murderer’ became more apparent. But I left the question of who killed the apple hanging in the air, careful not to answer it. I hoped that they students would see that the journey to find the answer was the real reason for the class. After all, archives are a place of questions—not always a place of answers.

Yes, I stressed over this one. I used a power point—something I rarely do. I like flip charts and white boards. I wrote out my presentation as a speech—something I rarely do. I like to speak naturally and go off topic now and again. But once I started to think of the class as a “performance” instead of my usual class, I was a bit more settled with it. I prefer activities that use lesson plans and archival sources, but this was fun too.