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**I commented on your project outline in green ~jk**

 

Design a Conceptual Framework

The following prompts will help you define the conception framework of your project.

 

For individuals: Reflect on this series of questions and record your responses on your own wiki page. Be ready to share at your next team meeting. Don’t become too wedded to your ideas yet.

For a group: When you meet, share and discuss your individual responses, then respond to the questions again together. If you aim for a collaborative project, try to “mash up” your efforts into one shared project idea.

 

 

1. What important and enduring concepts are fundamental to each subject you teach? List them. Try to limit the list to two to three big concepts for eachkhhipj subject. Refer to content standards you teach to determine those covered by these big “umbrella” concepts. 

 

Social Sceince/Geography

1. Understand the spatial concepts of location, distance, direction, scale, movement, and region

2. Use maps and other geographic tools and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective

3. Locate major physical and human (cultural) features of the Earth

4. Understand how people and the environment are interrelated

For your grade, do you look at the states, contintents, countries? Just thinking about contextualizing these skills a bit.

 

2. Why do these concepts matter? Why are they important?

1. Understand the spatial concepts of location, distance, direction, scale, movement, and region.

People need to understand maps to navigate in any place or situation.

 

2. Use maps and other geographic tools and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.

Important for people to be able to their locate themselves relative to where other people are.

 

3. Locate major physical and human (cultural) features of the Earth.

The historical context and the reasons behind why culture features are there.

 

4. Understand how people and the envioronment are interrelated.

People need to understand how physical and climate difference in region affect people lives and culture in their region.

 

3. Outside of school, who cares about these topics? What is their relevance in different people’s lives and in different parts of the world?

 

 Relevant to various job such as chartographers, organization that provide tours, travelers, and people involved in any sort of navigation jobs (buses, planes, moving trucks).

Very good! Local scientists use maps to document changes on the earth (ex: volcano geomorphism (Mt. St. Helen's growing) animal and plant populations (fender's blue butterflies and bradford's lomatium, two native prairie species...) This could be interesting to learn about w/ local experts.

 

All people in all jobs need to understand how differences and communalities in culture and environment are reflected in their lives.

 

 

4. Select one or two of the most promising of these topics and think about real-to-life contexts to answer: What are the interdisciplinary connections? What other subjects might be incorporated?

 

 Interdisciplinary connections include math, reading, writing, and speaking. Technology skills and interpersonal skills as well.

 

5. As you begin to imagine working with these topics, how might you push past rote learning into analysis, evaluation and creation? Incorporate Bloom’s “rigor” verbs in your answer.

 

1. Students wil lunderstand about their own region in relationship to the world, and compare that to the region of the world where their epal lives.

2. Students will contruct well written emails to their epals about their region.

3. Use technology to produce a culminting project about their region.

4. Students will give specific details about what it means to be from a different culture.

 

 

 

6. Imagine authentic ways students might engage in this topics within a project and the ways 21st century skills might be addressed. Hint: The terms collaboration, digital tools, and information literacy could appear in your answer!  Nets For Students

1. Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes.

2. Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.

3. Contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems

4. Evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks

 

7. What aspects of these topics will interest your students? (A feature that seems superficial or tangential but fascinates students can give you entrée into more essential matters, so brainstorm as many as you can.)

Many students have limited travel experiences, and have yet to venture out of the city boundaries. The idea of learning about another region and culturein a different part of the  the world will spark curiosty and interest.

 

 

 

8. What learning dispositions should you cultivate and ask your students to pay attention to? (REINV p. 51-52)

confidence, curiosty, cooperation

 

 

Project Learning Sketch: A Travel Story

In third grade students study the five themes of geography in social studies; location, distance, direction, scale movement, and region. My idea is to have students use their knowledge of these five themes to generate, analyze, and create a project that explains the  physical and human cultural features of their region to "give" to a pal in another part of the world. Students will connected with a student from another part of the world, and then in groups they will create a project for their travel pal to show them the differences and similaties of their region compared to theirs. For example, students could create a region project on a podcast with pictures, music, and narration.