TAMPA, Fla. — Students at Pizzo K-8 School honored the victims of 9/11 by learning all about each of them. As part of their social studies class, teachers assigned each student a victim from either the Pentagon or Flight 77 attacks to research and write a biography on, and then students placed their biographies on their marker.
The event is put on by Learn and Serve Tampa. Executive Director Kristy Verdi says it’s important that students today know what happened on 9/11, ensuring the victims are never forgotten.
“It’s critical to carry on the history of the event, not just the course of the event, because that’s the catastrophic stuff that people do highlight, but the causes, and explore those,” said Verdi.
This Sept. 11, it was a special day for the middle school students at Pizzo K-8 School. They all spent one period out of their day walking over to the Fowler Field Complex to complete a project they’d been working on.
“Amelia had only worked at the Pentagon for like two days before she died, and she died on her birthday actually,” said Morgan Money, a seventh grader at Pizzo K-8.
Morgan didn’t know Amelia personally, but she spent the last week getting to know her. “I did a lot more research on her when I went home over the weekend, because I found it really interesting and I wrote a paper,” she said.
Morgan and her friend, Maliyah, walked over to the field to join the rest of their classmates in front of a huge American flag display, where Verdi explained to them what it represented.
“Every one of these markers is an indication of a person whose life was lost,” said Verdi.
Each student had a biography in hand that they personally wrote about one of the Pentagon victims to place on their marker.
Morgan quickly found Amelia’s, and taped Amelia Fields’ biography on her marker. Through her research, she learned that Fields was a mother of two, and had only worked at the Pentagon for two days before the attack.
“Her story was really sad, I think, because she died on her birthday, I think she turned 46,” she said.
Morgan says while she knew a bit about the attacks prior to this, seeing all the markers made it real.
“When you see how many people actually died, when you’re looking at it, when you get told a number, it’s like a number, but when you can see it, it looks a lot worse,” said Morgan.
And seeing all the innocent lives lost, like Fields’, makes Morgan sad, but she says that sadness serves as a reminder to never forget.
The American flag display was placed by students this past weekend. It’s a partnership between Learn and Serve Tampa and the Veteran Approved Network. The display was sponsored by Toyota and American Visual Brands.