Global Partners Junior DETAILS
Implementing a Cross-Curricular Program (Virtual Tour)
Stage of Literacy Development:
Stage 3: Literacy for GrowthAges:
8-12
Grade Range:
3rd 4th 5th 6thFood Groups:
Primary: Knowledge Building, Vocabulary Secondary: Motivation for Literacy
Transcript
The 1st activity in the Global Partners program was to determine their environmental impact score. This helped them understand what their impact on the environment was. As a class, our average score was 13.5. By the end of the year we wanted to have a class average score of 10. So then, throughout the year, our goal was to find ways to reduce our impact on the environment and this led to all of the other activities that we did for the Global Partners program. Once the students figured out their impact score, they wanted to figure out ways to reduce their impact on the environment, so we made a list of different ways you can reduce your impact on the environment. They were then asked to write a letter to the community, that could be the classroom community, the school community, or their own individual community outside of the school. The letter was to persuade and to inform the community about how to reduce your impact on the environment. We went through the process of writing a letter, starting with looking at samples of letters and identifying the different features of a letter. We created an anchor chart for them to use, and then the students drafted their own letter. They decided on a specific way they wanted to encourage the community to reduce their impact on the environment. They wrote a letter then to persuade the community to do that. Behind me is the anchor chart and a sample of a letter that we created as a class. The sticky notes on the letter show students exactly what needs to be included in a letter. The second Global Partners task was to take the letter and to turn it into an advertisement. This was a media literacy activity and we started looking at the media triangle, so looking at the audience, the production, and the media text. Students had created posters for many years and this was something they felt like that had done before but the media triangle was really the richest part of the activity. They started looking at their audience, so to whom they were trying to target their advertisement. They wanted to look specifically at whom their target audience was and what they knew about their audience. My example was to advertise to use less paper. I explained to them that I knew our classroom used a lot of paper, so this topic was relevant to the classroom and I also knew that the classroom really loved animals. When I was producing my advertisement, I told my story from the point of view of the animals. This was a way to really grab the audience, so this was something they had to include in their advertisement. When they were looking at the production of the advertisement, which is the second side of the media triangle, they were thinking about how they were going to grab the audience's attention, so specific design elements, colors, fonts, and what went into the posters. The third part was the media text. From what point of view are you going to tell the story and how the story is going to be told. The students filled-out their media triangles and then they moved on to creating drafts for their advertisement. This meant that they had to consider the materials that were going to be used, they were going to have to plan what their advertisement looked like, and they were going to have to create a slogan. The slogan had to be catchy and had to make a point. Once they had their draft approved, then they went on to making their advertisement. I think it was really important for them to think about their audience and whom they were making the advertisement for. All of the text that was in their advertisement, the point of view, the colors they used, all the content, really had to be strategic, and this is the point of advertising. At this grade level, it was important for these students to really start to be discerning about how advertisements are created and how much thought goes into reaching an audience. We connected the Global Partners program to the social studies curriculum by looking at our involvement in global environmental initiatives. This helped the students connect their actions, their environmental impact score, their advertisements, and their letter to the global community. This helps make these topics relevant for them and it shows how their actions are relevant on a very large scale. Things like the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen Accord, environmental initiatives like this we looked at in detail. They learned that the objective of the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen Accord are to reduce greenhouse gases internationally. They understand that their actions to reduce their environmental impact are relevant for their country and for the international community. We learned about these initiatives through class readings and group discussions. I summarized information from the Internet for them, we read it as a class, and then we had rich conversations about how reasonable the expectations are that the global community can reduce greenhouse gases. We had conversations about how their actions can have a larger impact and we talked about ways that our countries can contribute to reducing greenhouse gases on a large scale. The thought bubbles here are their thoughts on how reasonable these expectations are and some examples of how they believe our country can reduce our greenhouse gases. Our classroom took a field trip to a fully sustainable building. The point of this was to investigate what makes a building sustainable. After we went to that building, we took a field trip to our school to investigate why our school is an unsustainable building. While we were on the first field trip, the students learned about things such as dual-flush toilets, vertical gardens, heated floors, motion sensors for lights, rooftop gardens, water cisterns. This is all vocabulary that they learned about. Behind me you can see that they created vocabulary cards for the Global Partners wall to help them remember some of the elements of what a sustainable building has to offer. The point of the field trip to this sustainable building was to inspire the students to redesign their own school. After they went on the field trip to the sustainable building and they investigated why their school was unsustainable, they began working on a project to redesign their building. They had to incorporate all of the features that they learned from the sustainable building, things like dual-flush toilets and vertical gardens, rooftop gardens and water collection systems. The first step of this was that they had to draw a design of what their ideal sustainable school would be. They had to choose 4 of the features from their redesign and they had to research how this feature works, where they would put it, why they chose it, why it was important in a sustainable building. Once they had done their research, they had to go back to their design and explain to me how they had incorporated it into their new school design. Once they had done this, they could begin building their model school. Once they build their 3-D models of their school, they write a 1-page explanation of their design. Theyll write about why they chose their features in the building, what makes the building sustainable, what makes their plan exciting, and why people should implement their plan in the future. The idea was for them to envision an ideal sustainable building in the future. Text Summary of Main Sections of Video: SUMMARY of Implementing Focus on Urban Sustainability in the Classroom Step #1: Calculate Impact on the Environment Step #2: Campaign to Reduce Environmental Impact Part 1 Wrote Letters Part 2 Created Ads Step #3: Connect Ideas to Global Issues Step #4: Redesign School for Sustainability
Related References
Additional Links:
Global Partners Junior: http://gpjunior.tiged.org
Ecological Footprint Quiz: http://www.earthday.org/take-action/footprint-calculator/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw--DLBRCNARIsAFIwR25Yss4EvLA_c1tmTFZZGwTlXHtxPtAsktIwAQwHGNFwCu8BmtyLQ4kaAk85EALw_wcB
Impact Assessment: https://www.cbd.int/impact/whatis.shtml
Resources for Rethinking: Exemplary Classroom Resources Reviewed by Teacher for Teachers http://resources4rethinking.ca
The Environmental Literacy Council: http://enviroliteracy.org/teachers-index
Environmental Science Games & Lessons from EcoKids: https://ecokids.ca
Activity Objective
The goal of Global Partners Junior DETAILS: Implementing a Cross-Curricular Program (Virtual Tour) is to provide a detailed explanation of a complex, cross-curricular approach, integrating social studies, science, math and literacy. The focus on urban sustainability inspires students to think critically about sustainability issues both locally and internationally by connecting with classrooms abroad. Students post their projects, reflections, ideas, or questions online for discussion with cities around the world. The curriculum helps students understand factors that contribute to creating a sustainable environment. The class goes through a number of steps including calculating the environmental impact of their classroom and implementing a campaign to reduce the environmental impact in their community. They attempt to influence the community to reduce their impact on the environment through the use of letter writing and persuasive advertisements. They then go on to make connections between what they are learning and the larger global context. As a culminating activity, students redesign their own school to make it more sustainable, creating a 3-D model of their design accompanied by a one-page written explanation.
Quick Tips
Additional Comments:
- A great way to introduce environmental issues to younger students is to start with a picture book. Use the pictures and content to motivate discussion on how students impact the environment and what they can do to improve. - Try showing your class photographs from around the world to inspire discussion on what some of the environmental issues might be for these countries. - The wide range of cities connected to the Global Partners project provides an opportunity to choose cities of special interest to your students. This can be done collaboratively through rich classroom discussion and may even spark a debate. - You'll find that many of your students will be connecting with these schools on their own time, so it's a good idea to touch base as a class to review some of the ongoing discussions. You never know where these discussions might take your lessons, so try and stay up-to-date. - You can make the 3-D model portion of the activity a group assignment, as this will inspire students to collaborate and discuss their thinking behind design choices. - Ask students to collect a number of different scrap materials from home to bring in for the 3-D model. This will inspire students to be more creative in their designs and they will be happy to know that they're using recycled materials.
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