...an interesting question
How did California become populated?
Article: How did California become populated
Maps: Google Slides
Essential Question:
How do communities change over time?
Lauch:
(1) What is a community?
This video is very basic, very good for language learners.
This one is a bit more mature, but still basic for those language learners.
I use this worksheet to set up the fish tank, to talk about ecosytems as communities.
(2) What communities are you a part of?
This link sends to the Census of 2020 results webpage. It is a good way for kids to start seeing California today. As we learn to understand data, I simply ask students "What do you notice?" and I navigate the page on the overhead. Then, I ask "What do you wonder?" as we click around the website together.
One engagement technique is to split students into groups of three and give them a chart paper. They can report things they noticed. One person can write facts on the chart, one student presents them and the other controls the computer.
(3) How is your community changing?
CLICK HERE for California Communities Project
CLICK HERE for the California Water Project
CLICK HERE for the Human Rights Project
Bulletin Boards:
Final Product:
Exhibition
MUST:
Be at least 7 feet wide
Address multiple changes in California history
Show the conflicting forces
Showcase the peace-makers
Use words and numbers, such as names, dates, slogans...
Have a theme or overarching emotion
MAY:
Use paint, markers, crayons, tile...
RESOURCES:
Reflection
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Thank you notes for feedback groups
Portfolio reflection
Start indivudal student projects:
Our school is located in Tulare County in California in a very rural section of town. The back field of our soccer field is an almond farm and the street across from the school office grows corn in the summer. It's about as rural as you can get. That means our school garden has stray cats, birds of all shapes and sizes, and lots of room for fun experiments, like whether growing sunflowers will increase bird populations. I use this form so that everyone has a job when we head outside. This project for our school is great to start March 1 and then it carries over into September of the next year. We loop with our students so the project can keep going over the summer!
Other changes from History that your class might be interested in:
Plessy vs Ferguson --> Brown vs. Board of Education In the court case called Plessy vs Ferguson, United States Supreme Court ruled for segregation. The idea was that it was constitutional to keep the races separated as long as everybody got something equal, separate but equal. So in that world of 1896 to 1954, lots of cities across United States were completely segregated. In 1954, came a giant change. In fact, there were lots of these little changes before. In Tape vs. Hurley, Chinese students were then allowed to attend mainstream school. In the Lemon Grove Incident, Mexicans were granted the same right... sort of. If your class is interested in racial segregation, or you have a budding lawyer in the class, this might be an angle you can use.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo As a teacher, in an area where a lot of students identify as Mexicans, I am always shocked to find out how very few of them know that California used to be part of Mexico. Every time I show them the borders of Mexico before this treaty was signed, they are shocked. "We didn't cross the border: The border crossed us," I hear so many say. Although many individual communities remained mostly the same, this treaty changed something about their communities at large. So it is very much a bird's eye view of outside factors that can come in and change your community.
The Use of Nuclear Power The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki started the nuclear age. This moment in history changed the entire direction of history. Some areas of Japan have yet to recover. Honestly, I think this is a little too dark for the age group that I teach. However, there's always at least one kid who is interested in atomic power, or nuclear weapons. You can talk about the tragedies of atomic weapons, a nuclear fallout, and how those things can change communities. But you can also talk about the benefits of nuclear power, how those things benefit communities. As as teacher, you must tread lightly. If you spin it right as a teacher, exploring how nuclear power changed the world can be a great project.
The Berlin Wall Came Down If you have a class like mine, they play Call of Duty and know just enough about World War II to be curious. This would be a good project for those students. That Berlin Wall stood for way too long and it would be a great tangent for kids to discover how the Berlin wall going up changed Berlin and how the Berlin wall coming down thirty years later changed it again.
Other resources:
Census information from 1840-2000
Primary Source Document of an immigrant to California (A fruit farmer)
After six weeks of inquiry, which covers many standards (history, science, reading and writing) we want students to pick their own projects. In other words, after six weeks, kids now tell me what they are interested in learning about. Keeping with the fourth grade California standards, here are some ideas kids might like.....
Student Projects for our school:
How do communities change over time?
What can we do to attract more birds to our garden?
How can we reduce the numbers of mosquitoes in our field?
How can we make our school community more efficient with paper?
How can we reduce the number of flies during the summer?
How do we protect the birds' nests on campus?
How has the demographics of our school changed since 1900?
Student Projects for California:
How do communities change over time?
How has Hollywood changed California communities?
What causes so many people to leave California now?
How did Stanford University change California?
(It made us the tech giant!)
Are solar farms beneficial or damaging to local communities?
How have wildfires changed California communities?
How does inflation effect California's homeless populations?
How does increased immigration effect the price of food?
How does social media change our communities? How do "community standards" on different platforms effect American life?
Deliverables:
MUST:
Be at least 7 feet wide
Address multiple changes in California history
Show the conflicting forces
Showcase the people who made change
Use words and numbers, such as names, dates, slogans...
Have a theme or overarching emotion
MAY:
Use paint, markers, crayons, tile...
RESOURCES:
MUST:
Be 10 minutes minimum
Include three to five graphics, made by you, such a graph, chart, image.
Address at least one way California has changed since the 1400s.
Explain the causes of the change
Explain the effects of the change
Describe the most influential people of the change
MAY:
Be typed or handwritten
Written as bullet points or as a script
Read from the paper or not
RESOURCES:
Service Projects:
If you are wanting to push this project further, you can take the second trimester to spin-off into a service learning project. Ask now, "What do we need to change about our community? How can we change it?" Then, you can get all sorts of authentic answers from the kids, like recycling projects, composting lunch leftovers, cleaning up a local water ways, helping the city board start a community pool, get cooler books in the library.... this is where kid ideas can really start to flow and it becomes much more authentic!
Adult Projects:
As a reminder, PBL should be authentic.... Authentic change in individual communities... But the children you have in front of you are exactly that, children. However, one day they will grow up and need to make their own projects. Want to see some adults with their projects, saving the world? Click here for the Audacious Project... you know, for adults who are audacious enough to think they can change the world.