As part of the fifth and sixth grade curriculum, students learn about the world’s continents – location, size, people, natural and human-made landforms, climate, countries, famous places, and natural resources.   The initial research project began in 2012-13 with a world continent study.  The students developed a continent template in which future classes could then continue to research the specific continent and extend the research into countries within each continent.  Each year since student teams have added one country each year from each of the five continents: Africa, Asia, Australia/Oceania, Europe, and South America.  

In 2017-18,  we added a study of five countries in North America: Canada, Costa Rica, Haiti, Jamaica, and Panama!

In 2019-2020, individual students chose a single country to research. They worked independently to explore their chosen country and build the webpages as part of a remote learning challenge. This work was much more independently done than in past years, and most students absolutely rose to the occasion!

In 2021-2022 students could elect to work in small group (up to three students) or independently on a country study. Since COVID-19 and its variants disrupted much of our work the previous year, several students did not study the United States of America in fourth grade and a group formed to study the USA this year. 

In 2023-2024 students were once again given their choice of countries to research.