Global Awareness

As a fifth grade teacher, teaching students about diversity through a heritage unit is something that I already incorporate into the school year. This global awareness lesson fits right in with this unit. I chose to use the ePals for my lesson. This is an educational website that offers communication with other classrooms all throughout the world. The students (or teacher) are able to search for other students their age. The classrooms range from within the United States to across the globe such as China. I chose to develop a list for the students to choose from in order to select which country they would like to interact with. The list was derived from the classrooms available on ePals. The students were required to collaborate with another student from their country of choice. The students would ask appropriate questions to learn more about their country of interest. After their collaboration over a period of time, the students would compile all of their letters into a portfolio and summarize what they learned about the culture and land that they learned about. This lesson allows the students to work on their social skills and writing skills while interacting with their country of choice. It also gives the students an insight on the diversity of other countries and cultures.