Some Mexico Middle School sixth graders have taken on a project to determine the Seven Wonders of Mexico.

Teacher Mel Hamm came up with the idea and is using this year’s sixth-grade class as her guinea pig for the project. 

“This is just a chance for them to get to know their history,” Hamm said.

Hamm said the first step in the project was figuring out what a “wonder” is and what qualifies something as such. The class came up with seven criteria for Mexico’s wonders. The structure must be man-made, built before the year 2000, bigger than the average two-story home, built for a purpose, difficult to construct, electricity not required to serve its purpose, and have cultural value.

The class discussed wonders of the world like the Taj Mahal and came up with some early ideas for Mexico like Presser Hall and the former Liberty Theatre. Hamm said students will pick family members or people from the community to interview for the project.

To get a jump start on the project Hamm invited Lori Pratt and Morgan Morgan from the Audrain County Historical Society for some help. The two visited Hamm’s class on Thursday, Oct. 19. 

Although the discussion was supposed to be about the wonders of Mexico the discussion quickly diverted to a local history lesson about Tom Bass when Morgan asked the students if they knew who Tom Bass was. No one raised their hand so the lesson began.

“He was man-made because he was born of man but I don’t think that’s what you’re teacher was implying,” Morgan said.

The history lesson included a story about how Bass invented his famous bit that is still used today and how he became worldwide famous. Morgan and Pratt asked the students who their favorite sports team or movie star is and there were several answers. Morgan said in Tom Bass’ era folks like him were the superstars.

“He was the superstar,” Morgan said. “He was known across the country.”

“The Queen of England wanted him to come over,” Pratt added. “He said, ‘I don’t like water and my horses wouldn’t like it any better. No thank you.’”

The students also got a history lesson about the A.P. Green Fire brick factory, how famous the bricks were worldwide, and built the economy of the town. Pratt said many of the warships used firebricks to line their boilers. Pratt said they were contacted last year by someone in France who had found an A.P. Green brick off the coast. Morgan said before the U.S. officially entered the war it was already involved.

“World War II the United States wouldn’t have been involved at all except for Mexico fire brick,” Morgan said.

Hamm said the students will create a scrapbook with their wonders that will be a living document added to each year.