George Watts Elementary is an extraordinary school. As a public Montessori magnet, the students come from a diverse array of backgrounds. Every day when children come to school, teachers individualize the curriculum for each child, giving them work that is at his or her own level. This is impressive.

Students from Duke's Center for Documentary Studies spent the fall semester documenting the life of Watts. The class is called Capturing Transience: Documentary Photography and the Digital Age. Childhood is one of the most transient times in our lives, and each Duke or Carolina student spent the semester photographing an individual, a class, or an idea.

Service learning at Duke provided a grant to produce this website, and the website as well as all prints from a final exhibit were given to the school as a gift and an effort to support the hard work they put in every day to educate the children of Durham.