Lesson Title: “Celebrating Our Nation’s Diversity”
Subject: Social Studies
Grade Level: PreK-2
Purpose: Through the use of a real-world experience, students communicate in a variety of ways, and retrieve, organize, and synthesize data to develop an understanding of diversity. Students develop an understanding of what a census is, why it is conducted, and the procedure for doing so.
Description: In this lesson, students conduct a class census to measure diversity. The lesson is aimed at having a discussion of the key concepts associated with diversity and then writing or drawing abut current impressions, thoughts, observations, and questions before looking at actual statistical data.
Note: Depending on developmental level and technology experience, students may need parental or volunteer assistance to complete tasks.
Key Activities: Using a Google Earth navigating software, teacher will point out various countries and discuss their location in relation to the United States; Using a globe students will point out various countries and discuss their location in relation to the United States..; Teacher will facilitate a discussion about the definition and concept of a country, differences and commonalties, including ancestors and heritage…; As the activity progresses, have student gain an appreciation for obtaining factual information about the United States using a Census Bureau Website…; Discuss the information collected in the last activity in light of measuring conclusions and testing the accuracy of the census data collection…; Each group examines actual questions asked by the Census Bureau in the census report…; Students present the questions they have developed to the rest of the class…; Collect all questionnaires and enter data into data base…; When the census questionnaires have been completed, students summarize and present the information in various forms. Discuss the diversity of the United States. Explore pictures in Google Earth navigating software…; Each group creates a multimedia presentation based on the information collected on the assigned theme…; and Students hold an international festival that includes natives food dress, literature, music, and multimedia presentations. Students write abut the festival and the information they have learned about the countries of their ancestors and other countries…
Social Studies Standards for this lesson are: I, II, III, IV, V & IX
NETS Performance Indicators for Grades 3-5 are: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 10
Assessment: The teacher can take anecdotal records while observing students throughout each activity and create rubrics to evaluate the electronic or print journals, graphs, multimedia presentations, and group presentations.
Resources: Computers with audio recording capability, word-processing, multimedia-authoring, mapping (e.g., MapMaker Toolkit, Neighborhood Map Machine); http://www.cnets.iste.org/
Web sites: Google Earth: www.googleearth.com; MapQuest: www.mapquest.com/; Cartography by Hammond, Inc.: http://19.41.39.5/hammond20.html; National Geographic: www.nationalgeographic.com/
2 comments:
Hi Gerri,
I loved the picture! This is a great lesson plan for students to learn cultural empathy and imaginatively participate in other's worldview.
I believe that the purpose of education is to learn and to became a better person in life. I also believe that students learn more when the teacher accpets and appreciates the differences that lie between people of different cultures.
I teach Spanish to Middle/High school students, I think I mentioned it before...and I always teach them about different cultures, because of the diversity of students that I have in the classroom, I want them to respect each other.
Hey Geri,
I agree, this is a great lesson to teacher children about diverstiy and cultural awareness, especially amongst their peers.
As teachers, it's important to teach multi education in our curriculum. This will help students to understand various cultural groups along with thier lifestyles. It will help students gain a sense of pride in thier culture and learn how to respect those who come from a different ethnic background.
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