When planning a lesson for global awareness, I wanted to enable my students to develop background knowledge that will help them make connections with cultural awareness. In order to do this, I decided to have students work in pairs to research a culture or ethnicity of their choice. They will use their research to present a cultural "life cycle". They will show traditions of their culture of choice. They will present how the culture recognizes birth, death, birthdays, coming of age, the New Year, and so on. They will also incorporate tradtions specific to that culture; for instance, if studying Mexico, they may include information on Dia de los Muertos and Cinco de Mayo. Students will use their research to make a poster and present their understanding to their peers. The activity is hands-on and student-led. The students get to choose how to complete the project and will lead the discussion around their topic.

Prior to beginning this activity, students will explore "Arthur's Neighborhood" from www.pbs.org. This site will introduce the topic of global awareness and allow students to explore the concept of cultural differences through games and activities. They will also use it to identify the culture they would like to study.

 

 

 

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Meghan, great idea! Thanks for sharing.

Meghan,

Great lesson! I love the "life cycle" idea.  Learning about different cultures as a child is so eye-opening because they are so focused on themselves.  Letting them choose their own culture to research, study and present to the class gives them more buy-in the the activity.  Cooperative learning groups are a great learning experience as well.  After your students hear all of the presentations, they will have had exposure to many different cultures.  Hopefully, this knowledge will help lead to more tolerance and understanding of cultures.

This sounds like a great project.  I think that the students will show a lot of interest in this and it should make for some great presentations.  It would be interesting to see if you have students in your class that have special practices for their culture or ethnicity.  This would be a great time for them to shine and possibly bring in something special to their culture.

I like the idea of your lesson! I love that your students are researching the topic or culture first with a partner! I also like how you allowed the students to create a poster or project of their choice. I think that having the activity hands on and student led is important, and students will really take ownership in their project. I also this pbs.org is a great website for students to use to create background knowledge of global awareness. My students love pbs.org and I think this will grab their attention and interest them.

Hi Meghan,

I like the idea of the having the students base their project on the life cycle of various cultures.  The traditions that would be included in this project would really allow students to become aware of similarities and differences between their personal cultures and those they are studying.  Creating this awareness will allow students to see life through the perspective of a different culture which will encourage understanding and tolerance.  Great job!

Meghan,

I like that your lesson emphasizes the identification of different traditions among various cultures. I also like how you indicate that the lesson should be led by the students. I think that it's really important to provide students with choice and make them participants in deciding the direction of the lesson. Well done!

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