Grade Level(s): Incoming 7th graders

Teacher Name(s): Ruthie Bovey & Rachel Driver

Artist Name(s): Connie Orbeta

Big Idea: The diversity of food in our family, community, country, and world

Inquiry question: How is our world united and divided by food?

1. How did your team conceive your project? How was inquiry introduced to students and how did you integrate the inquiry process into your project?

We decided to create our big idea based on what we knew students would be interested in and excited about learning. We are all passionate about food, and we all need food to survive, so what better than spending six weeks talking about food! We started off by modeling/showing the students what we would be talking about and incorporating into our daily plans. We had them come up with questions they had regarding how food unites/divides us and then we worked on finding out the answers to those questions.

2. How did you integrate SEL into your projects?

We noticed very early on that our students seemed more relaxed and happy whenever painting was involved, so we made sure to adjust our plans accordingly and try to include a lot of painting/drawing activities for them. Throughout the days, we learned that a major component of SEL for these students was incorporating a short "recess" into our daily schedule. This helped the students "reset" and they came back ready to keep working. While taking our daily breaks, we included games to play together to encourage friendship and communication between our students. All of our games were takes on regular games, but then changed to food style. Other SEL activities we incorporated included: discussion about comfort foods and how certain foods make us feel, painting masks, and other short, fun activities to help them stay excited about learning.

3. What did you learn about your students and how they learned? What did you learn about the way you teach?

We learned that our students don't always have the longest attention span and to make sure that we chunked our activities and work into smaller sections so that they didn't get too bored. We also learned that when we were creating something, whether that be drawing, painting, sculpting, etc., they seemed to focus more and work longer. One big surprise was just how artistically creative and talented the students were with just a little guidance by our Artist. Students wanted to learn and wanted to perfect their products as much as possible. Our artist learned that students seemed to like the process of "doing" and are not concerned about the outcome, how it looks, how neat it is, etc. She normally teaches college students and she says that it is the opposite. She had to readjust her teaching style to make sure she catered to what these younger students needed.