Teacher Tips for This Project

The project author uses this as part of a semester long program. As a class the students repeat the research cycle and this task three times. Each time they will have a greater understanding of the Five Themes of Geography,the Research Cycle, their own ideas about what makes a good place to live, and presentation skills.

This project is meant to be integrated into the geography curriculum, with all curriculum elements taught in appropriate places which integrate student questions (about the five themes of geography) as they progress through the project.

The areas of study are:

• Round 1: Latin America
• Round 2: Africa
• Round 3: Asia

Students complete the process 3 times, once for each continent, asking similar questions (hopefully better more intelligent questions) when they repeat the process on the different continents.

It is important for the students to repeat the cycle so that they learn how to pose well-thought-out questions and find information that helps them state their answers.

Background knowledge of the Five Themes of Geography is essential to this project and should be taught as part of the process.

Note: The themes of geography as stated by OSPI are:

• Location-(relative and absolute)
• Place-(human and physical characteristics)
• Human environment interaction-(relation of humans with their environment)
• Movement-(connection between people, goods, ideas & places)
• Region-(formal and functional)

The themes of geography as stated by the textbook are:

• Location of Place
• Character of Place
• How humans interact with the environment
• How people, goods, and ideas move between places
• Similarities & differences between this place and others

Resources

Text Materials

• Barerwald, Thomas J. and Celeste Fraser. World Geography: Building a Global Perspective. Prentice Hall, 1998. With 4 accompanying videotapes, see description below.
• World Geography Video Collection. Prentice Hall, 2003.
• Tape 1 - Physical and human geography; The United States and Canada; Latin America (1 hr. 45 min)
• Tape 2 - Western Europe; Central Europe and Northern Eurasia (1 hr. 45 min)
• Tape 3 - Central and Southwest Asia; Africa (69 min)
• Tape 4 - South Asia; East Asia and the Pacific World (68 min)

Videos

• National Geographic Society. Geography: Five Themes for Planet Earth (videotape). 1992. (21 min)
• Commanding Heights: Battle for the World Economy. WGBH, 2002. Boxed set of 3 videotapes

Books & Atlases

• Global Studies Series-8 paperbacks. Dushkin
  • The Middle East
  • Europe
  • Japan and the Pacific Rim
  • Africa
  • China
  • India and South Asia
  • Russia, The Eurasian Republics, and Central/Eastern Europe
  • Latin America
• Nystrom Desk Atlas. set of 30
• Renard, John. The Handy Religion Answer Book. Detroit: Visible Ink, 2002.
• Sharma, Martha B. and Gary S. Elbow. Using Internet Primary Sources to Teach Critical Thinking Skills in Geography. Greenwood, 2000.
• Superka, Barb and Rebecca Parnell. Teaching International Relations. Center for Teaching International Relations, 2002.

Selecting the Work Groups:

Students are placed in groups of three by the teacher. The project author assesses each student's personality using a survey and assigns them to a group based upon traits such as: expressive, driver, or amiable. Some established surveys exist on the internet.

The project author advocates the use of friendly competition within the group as they select, research and advocate for their county. This adds fun and encourages student participation. Cooperative group work could also be used.

At the reporting stage, each group member is assigned one major task. 1) PowerPoint Presentation 2) Letter Home to Parents 3) Visual Aid/Overhead and Product/Demonstration.

For rounds 2 & 3 of the research, mix the groups of students. One method would be to have all those who created the PowerPoint Presentation move to a new group. The students should be assigned a different task in rounds 2 and 3 so that by the end of the semester, all students had completed all three reporting tasks.

Saving Files:

Set up a folder on a shared drive where teams can save and access their project files. Work with your Library Media Specialist to find the best place. Always have one student backup the team files on their h: drive.

Citing Sources:

Students are required to cite their information sources during research.

See model citations and online modules that can assist students in creating their list of works in Citing Sources for Writing & Research. You may also be interested in the following:

• MLA In-Text Citations provided by Diane Hacker
• Citation Machine free service from David Warlick's Landmark Project allows the user to click on the type of resource and fill in a form, creating their citation in correct format.

General Information about the project:

• Students refer to their "Buddy" (Research Cycle Rubric) throughout the project. They may give their Buddy a name (i.e. R2D2 or The Hulk). The teacher will assess, score and sign off on each step of their Buddy before students move on. Steps: Questioning, Use of Time, Gathering Information, Sorting, Why is this important to me, and Evaluating.
• Many lessons should be taught/led by the teacher and completed by all groups as a class. These include but are not limited to:
  1. Brainstorming/categorizing factors that make a place livable
  2. Creating Mind Map using the Inspiration program: The Mind Maps help students organize their answerable questions based upon the categories they have identified.
  3. Generating answerable questions-This is a major focus for the project. The teacher should be prepared to teach, reteach and model the formation of good answerable questions helping students to grow in their skill. *Try not to squelch student interest in their own questions, even if they seem unanswerable to you. Let them attempt to locate answers for a time. Perhaps the first research session. Then discuss as a class the difficulties they are having relative to some of their questions. Ask the groups to meet and retool, refine their questions. Some questions may need to be eliminated in favor of a more answerable question.
  4. Other lessons based upon the curriculum guide which relate to topics students will be researching. (economics, political systems, population density, etc.)
• Some activities will be completed separately by team members, then shared with the team.
1. Pre-research Activity-(Planning Step) Each student chooses 3 countries they are interested in. After gathering Pre-research statistics and map data information from the text, narrow it down to their one best country. Each team member must select a different country.
2. Research Records-(Gathering Step) Each student is responsible for collecting 12 research records on their country using the questions from the team's Mind Map. The teacher may wish to print multiple copies of the Research Record form for students to use in hard copy, however students may also use the electronic version. To work at the computer students should open and save the Research Record file. They may highlight, copy, and paste blank forms as many times as needed. They may also save their research in several files with two records contained in each.
• Some activities will be completed by the team. This may be done using a competitive or cooperative focus.
1. Choosing Your Country Matrix-(Sorting Step) Students will compile individual answers on one matrix, then attempt to persuade team members that their country is best relative to each question. Students will vote on the best country for each question and the country with the most wins will become the team's country of choice. A country must win on a minimum of 5 questions to be selected.
2. Why Is That Important to Me?-(Synthesizing Step) Students enter the winning questions and answers from the Choosing Your Country Matrix for their country of choice. They then determine why that information or characteristic is important to a person living in the country.
• Some activities will be completed by a single team member. The teacher will work with groups of students who must focus on a particular task, in order to clarify expectations and teach skills specific to that task.

1. Letter Home to Parents-(Reporting Step) Teach the skills needed through a guided writing activity that demonstrates some elements found on the Writing Rubric. A sample letter is included for your use.
2. PowerPoint Presentation-(Reporting Step) Review the example presentation and emphasize design elements, bulleting main ideas, talking points, do's and don'ts. Refer to the Presentation Rubric. Another great rubric is offered by Multimedia Mania. (http://ced.ncsu.edu/mmania/)
3. Visual Aid-Poster/Overhead and Product or Demonstration-(Reporting Step) Students will have 2 responisbilities. They must use the 5 Theme of Geography on a poster or overhead. They must create or demonstrate or present a cultural or environmental aspect of the country. This might be done by preparing a food, song, dance, some of the language, products of the country, a craft, etc. See the Visual Aid rubric and the sample poster.

Time Allocation:

This project could be used as the core for a semester curriculum with all lessons stemming from the needs of the students as they progress through the research cycle and the project steps.

Round 1 may take as long and 1 1/2 months of class time. Rounds 2 & 3 requiring lesser amounts of time because students would be familiar with the process.

The teacher will need to schedule time in a lab so that students have access to computers for their research and note taking. Approximately 1/3 of all class time will need to be done in a computer lab.

Presentation Schedule-Set aside 2 block periods for presentations or the amount of time necessary to give 15 minutes per team.

Rubrics:

Four rubrics are provided which give the student guidelines on the expectations for the project. These rubrics are for: Research Cycle (Buddy), Presentation, Visual Aid,and Writing. You may also wish to consult the District's Culminating Project Presentation Rubric (.pdf file) and build these characteristics into your work with the students. Another good resource might be the anchor papers for the WASL Writing Assessment.

In order to evaluate other teams, each student in the class will receive a number of yellow sticky tabs to give a number rating each team's presentations. On the sticky note, the student writes one positive statement, and one statement for improvement, with their 1-10 rating.

When all teams are rated, students place their sticky tabs with ratings, above a 1-10 scale, to build an informal "bar graph" for a visual of how all projects were rated by their peers.

Example:

Presentation Notes:

The teacher should show the example presentation at the beginning of the semester as the project is being described. It should also be referred to when *working with the students whose task it is to create their own persuasive PowerPoint.

The teacher or librarian should demonstrate how to print notes/slides for oral presentation from the PowerPoint print menu.

*If a student has had NO previous experience with PowerPoint and must create a presentation, you may wish to have them open the example presentation, save it to their h: drive, and begin working by simply substituting their own text and images for those in the sample.

Final: At the end of the term, after all three continents are complete, ask students to list nine characteristics of a good place to live, and tell why.