Our 8th graders have been wearing out the carpet in the library as they come in everyday to work on their History project, "History of Me" They are very interested in this project and love working on it. They are required, throughout the year, to make a powerpoint of their lives, their interests, their family, their future plans, and a family tree. How exciting to see the students looking at the databases to find out where they came from. One student was going back to the 17th century. The Ancesty Library and Heritage Quest have made it easy to find information to fill in a family tree. They are able to trace their families back and discover where they came from. As interest in this project increases, another avenue to keep interest would be to use Sanborn Maps in conjuction with family heritage. What was the state like in a particular time period. Why did people move to some places and out of others? These questions could be turned into a short research project incorporating the maps and charts found in both ancestry databases and Sanborn maps.
8. W.7 Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration
The past opens up with a click of the mouse. With resources so easily available, learning is fun, no longer an assignment for school but a discovery which hopefully will continue throughout a lifetime.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
1 comment:
"The past opens up with the click of a mouse" --What a great statement!! I love the "History of Me" project and how students use the library and other resources (Personal interviews, no doubt) to fulfill their requirements--and have fun doing it. Yea! Thanks for telling us about this.
Post a Comment