Every year, the Berkeley Carroll Middle School hallways become a time machine for the 8th Grade Living Wax Museum.

Families and faculty moved through the transformed space to encounter dozens of eighth graders in full costume, each one inhabiting a figure who left an indelible mark on human history. Marie Curie stood ready to discuss radioactivity. Mark Twain and Alexander Hamilton waited to hold court. Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, Harry Houdini, David Bowie, Ella Fitzgerald, Roberto Clemente, and Lindsey Vonn were among the scientists, writers, activists, musicians, and athletes on hand, representing centuries of human achievement across nearly every field imaginable.

The spectacle of the event, the costumes, the props, the live performances, captures the attention, but the Living Wax Museum is built first on a foundation of genuine academic research. In preparation, each eighth grader selected a historical figure who overcame significant societal or personal obstacles to impact the world in their way.

Students spent weeks immersed in full-length biographies, memoirs, and autobiographies before molding those complex legacies into tight, engaging first-person monologues designed for a live audience.

"Students discover that learning about other people's lives has an enormous benefit to their own. I want students to appreciate that people have so much to tell each other, and hopefully this project can spark that curiosity." — Mike Wilper, Middle School Humanities Teacher

The event continues to be a much-anticipated tradition and a rite of passage for students as they prepare to enter the Upper School. The Class of 2030 tackled this project with curiosity, empathy, and style, proving, once again, that history isn’t only found in a textbook.

View the Living Wax Museum Photo Gallery Here