By: Tom Goldberg/History Teacher

The United States Constitution is the highest law of the land–it sets the rights and responsibilities of the state, the institutions that make up the states, and contains many of the rights that the American people have.  There are 27 Amendments, or changes, to the Constitution, and the first ten are referred to as The Bill of Rights.  These first ten Amendments map out the rights and freedoms that the framers of the Constitution believed needed to be protected at all costs.  In Law and Government, the seniors examined the Bill of Rights in detail.  To gain a better understanding, each student provided illustrations for the Amendments within the Bill of Rights, portraying each with a drawing that they felt represented the Amendment as a whole.  With the help of Mr. Hayden, the students put together a large replica of the Bill of Rights that included their illustrations next to the corresponding Amendments.  This Bill of Rights now hangs in the halls of Ocean Academy to serve as a reminder of the importance of this document and the rights it grants the American people.