N.S. teacher using family history to bring Halifax Explosion lessons to life

A teacher in Lower Sackville, N.S. has found a way to educate her students about the Halifax Explosion while honouring her grandmother’s legacy.

Tera Belfield said she began incorporating her grandmother’s story into her lessons a few years ago after coming across an old an interview she did with Global News in December 1998.

Her grandmother, Florence Allen, was just 12 years old when the blast rocked both sides of the Halifax Harbour.

READ MORE: Nova Scotia family selling a piece of Halifax Explosion history

While Allen was able to walk away with just minor injuries, the blast ultimately took the lives of both her mother and her sister.

Belfield said it was a part of her family history she always knew as a child growing up in Halifax but has recently found a new way to keep her grandmother’s memory alive.

WATCH: Florence Allen was just 12 years old on the day of the Halifax Explosion. Decades later she sat down with Global’s Nancy Shepard to tell her story.

2:25 Halifax Explosion survivor recounts the horror more than 70 years later

“I had come across an old interview on VHS of my grandmother so that is kind of what inspired me to start looking at other things and other resources,” said Belfield.

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“There isn’t a whole lot of resources out there for teachers to use. But I had a lot of my own personal content to add in so I was able to have lots to share with the kids.”

Belfield still has a school project she did as a child where she interviewed her grandmother about the explosion.

READ MORE: ‘They deserve our love’: Memorial service planned for orphans lost in Halifax Explosion

She now uses it as a poignant teaching tool in her grade 3/4 classroom at Smokey Drive Elementary.

“As I’m getting older and you realize just how valuable life is, it just changes how you see everything,” said Belfield, adding that her personal connection to The Explosion has helped her students to better understand the devastation from decades ago.

“It gives them an idea of what this was really about — not just a ship that exploded and some people died. It’s that it’s somebody that their teacher knew and cared about.”

Belfield said she has also enjoyed getting to share this unique aspect of her family’s history with her two young sons, Nolan and Mack.