As the last of World War II veterans slip from the living pages of history, teachers throughout Rome City and Floyd County Schools continue to keep the pulse of the past going when they teach students about the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor.

For the anniversary of the attack, classrooms all across Floyd County will be filled with students listening intently to excerpts from textbooks and media presentations alike.

The surprise Dec. 7, 1941, military attack killed 2,402 and wounded 1,282 Americans. The base was attacked by 353 Japanese fighters, bombers and torpedo planes launched from six aircraft carriers.

Millions of shocked Americans were glued to their radios as President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to the attack as “a date that will live in infamy” and summoned soldiers, declaring war on Japan.

But more than seven decades later the memory is fading fast. Richard Riggs, an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Coosa Middle School, said that as more veterans die each year, students have become detached from an important moment in our nation’s history.

“They just don’t know about it,” Riggs said, as his students watched select clips from the 2001 movie.

Riggs said he brings in WWII artifacts to show the students, as well as shows them a multimedia presentation about the attack.

He compares and contrasts excerpts from both American and Japanese textbooks delineating the attack, he said.

Pepperell Middle School teacher Christy Davis will discuss the Pearl Harbor attack with her students and have them view a video presentation, as well as sharing first-hand knowledge she learned from visiting the site a few years ago, school officials said.

Rome City students will also have their fair share of Pearl Harbor lessons as well. Literacy teachers in fourth through sixth grades at East Central Elementary School will be reading and discussing Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech, said Principal Parke Wilkinson. Students will write short essays about the speech after hearing the audio clip.

Third- through sixth-graders at East Central will view and discuss an interactive Pearl Harbor attack map, Wilkinson said. They will also discuss the timeline of events that transpired throughout that day.

Kathy Turley, a seventh grade teacher at Rome Middle School, said her students have been studying Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia, and she has had students interview family members who have served in the military.

Those who could not locate family members went online to find articles about veterans of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, she said. Several students presented interviews related to WWII veterans and students have also viewed video clips about the attack on Pearl Harbor and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Today students will view a second video clip about the attack on Pearl Harbor and will discuss the event and its impact on the U.S.

The sixth grade classes at West Central Elementary will be viewing rare video footage of the sneak attack, school officials said, and students will discuss the events leading up to and including the attack. World events today will be compared and contrasted with the world in the 1940s.

Sixth-grade students at Elm Street Elementary visited the media center on Thursday, blending traditional research and non-fiction books with technology as they used iPads to research this important day in history.

Using the essential question, “What is important about Dec. 7, 1941?” they blended a lesson of research with a high interest historical event. They witnessed the event come alive as they watched a video streaming on their iPads. They also used computer search engines, books, periodicals and magazines to complete their immersion in the topic.

A special American flag that has been flown over U.S. Army Headquarters in Iraq will be raised today on the flagpole and flown over the school.