History / Social Science

Culture Bling

Students can take a long block period to draw and design a ring or pendant using iconography from the culture they are studying in history. Here, an Incan creature adorns a student's hand. Design in class, then get the finished 3D prints a few days later.

Poll Data

With a little coding and crafting, students could make a tactile polling station and gather data from the community during a break.

Pinball Wizardry

Giving students the chance to fabricate a game play surface that reflects important concepts from your course helps enhances the meaning in a multi-model fashion. Art, engineering, coding, and theme can fuse together. Then, celebrate with a play session, or invite the larger community in on the fun.

Tell a Story in Light

Students can use copper tape and LED stickers to easily create circuits that illuminate a map, picture, or series of images. They can even make simple switches to light up different elements, or they can add a little coding to control timing. This allows them to convey ideas about history and society through light and touch.

Game It New School

This hand-held retro gaming device is easily coded to create custom games. Your students can gamify ideas and events from history or society, and they will demonstrate their comprehension while having tons of fun.

Game it Old School(ish)

A board game can be a great way for students to demonstrate knowledge of your history content. With craft knives and hot glue, suddenly we have a 3D play surface with unlimited possibilities. Throw in some coding, and now we've got a game controller (dice) with interesting symbolic potential. Let's have fun!

Signals

Students could create a stylish crown like this one, but they could also mount this microcontroller on their heads and use it for non-verbal communication. Different head movements result in different light and sound displays. What social / psychological behaviors might we play with here?

Touching Idea

With microcontrollers, it's easy for students to animate and express meaning in poster presentations. Make elements move, light up, or make sound in response to motion, touch, light, sound, or button presses.

Build It

The architecture of an era often tells the story of the people who live, work, or worship in it. Students can construct models with cardboard, wood, or 3D printing. Additionally, a teacher might give parameters of a someone's social standing in a given fictional society, then students build models and explain how the architecture reflects the values, needs, and socioeconomic status of the inhabitants.

Statuesque

Students can dress in costume and hold props, then pose for a 3D scan. Importing the scan into a CAD program then allows transformation into a real or imagined historical figure. Is this a monarch self-aggrandizing monument, or part of a story a society is telling itself about its past? We can print the statues, or students can narrate virtual tours of their creations.

It's Lit

Whether it's 3D printing, paper cutting, hand drawing, or laser cutting, there are many ways for students to express ideas with art and light. Maybe the class can tell a story from history together when the projects are assembled together? Map a journey, then see where the students go.