BLHS students complete ‘Psychological Thrillers’ project

Created on Friday, 15 November 2013

Written by THE BELLEFONTAINE EXAMINER STAFF

Benjamin Logan High School students enrolled in the Introduction to Psychology class recently completed a project where they created virtual tours of haunted places in Ohio to examine the question “What makes people afraid or fearful, and how does the spooky become scary?”

Benjamin Logan High School students Cody Careyette and Jake Noble show their "Indian Revenge" project to fifth-graders John Campbell, Kylie Honaker, Marlee Liles, Annaka Simovart, Jacob McKenrick, Autumn Gray, Dylan Riebel and Thomas Lockwood. (PHOTO  |  BENJAMIN LOGAN SCHOOLS)

Students selected environments, such as woods, mansion, prison, hospital, school, or laboratory to use as the place for the haunting and conducted research on actual haunted locations in Ohio.

Using a technology skill from middle school, participants revisited the Google Sketchup tool first taught to them by Marge Jenkins and were able to create virtual haunted places using this technology and other resources. They worked under the guidance of teacher Jill McKelvey.

The project allowed the psychology pupils the chance to visit some haunted houses or some areas they were actually using for their own story. Students were required to create a story on how the place became haunted and then needed to tell the story in a dramatic way to an audience.

Benjamin Logan fifth-graders in Stephanie Rader and Lori Young’s classrooms visited the school to judge the scare factor of each project.

The fifth-graders seemed the most mesmerized by “Indian’s Revenge” created by Cody Careyette and Jake Noble and the “Junkyard/Junkies” created by Ashley Gearheart, Lindsey Longbrake and Jackie Melvin.

Both teams scored high “fear factor” ratings, with Indian’s Revenge receiving remarks for its great storytelling and the Junkies receiving commendation on the setting created for the virtual tour.

The projects also were presented to teachers and administrators, who viewed not only the virtual tour, floor plan sketch, and advertising poster but also a video commercial.

“I was really pleased with the high quality stories created by the students and the imagination used to build the virtual tours,” teacher Lindsey Balla said. “ ‘Die-tronix’ (created by Michaela Lingrell and Ian Fogle) had an awesome virtual tour.”

Mathematics teacher Luann Schmitmeyer was impressed by the quality of the video commercials of many groups.

“I really thought the ‘Revenge of the Hatchet-man’ (by Dalton Greene, Mack Horton and Davis Bowers) was professionally done,” she said.

When asked whose project was the most intriguing, she replied, “ ‘The Death Carnival’ (created by Stacey Turner, Hannah Boysel and Camille Watson) no doubt, I mean who isn’t scared of clowns?”

Athletic Director Scott Reule volunteered his time as well. Not usually seeing this side of students, Mr. Reule could not believe the imagination and tech skills demonstrated by the students.

“Many of these projects were unbelievable. How did they come up with these amazing ideas?” he said.

“ ‘The Long Night Company’ (by William Kennedy, Matthew Core and Joe Kuhmer) looked professionally done.”

Mr. Reule was also fascinated by the story and presentation of the project by “Disasters and Masters” made by Dalanie Barns, Aaron Olson and Mara Robinson.

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