For one of our lessons for the unit plan we created an artifact bag. This is an inquiry lesson.
The purpose of an artifact mystery bag is to encourage our students to research. Our students will look into the bag and discover what artifacts we placed in them. They would then do research based on the books or websites we provided for them and discover why all these items were placed together and how they are related. We did a mock version of this in our class today. It was interesting to see the items our classmates chose and the reasoning behind why they chose them. As an adult I enjoy doing the inquiry lesson portion of a unit. It is fun to explore. In my lesson I encouraged the participators to answer questions based on the 5 W's. Who, what, where, when, and why. This encourages the students to think much deeper.
Today we presented our current event project. We used the website Newsela to read different articles about things that occurring in the world currently.
It is a great website to use for students because it is student friendly. There are different grade levels, and the articles are tailored to the students so they are able to read at the appropriate level. This helps them stay up to date with things that are occurring in the world. My group did a current even focused on Debating. Through this model our students can read articles, discover pros and cons in the article and pick a side. They would then debate and defend the position they chose within this subject. I think incorporating debating into Social Studies and currents events is a wonderful idea. This gives students the opportunity to express themselves. Every student in the class is allowed to have an opinion but this method encourages our students to respect each others opinions. This method also encourages effective communication skills. Learning what is appropriate to say in class and how to say it is extremely important.
In class today, we explored three significant tribes. The Lakota, the Tlingit, the Deni' tribe are the three. This was such a learning experience because these are not tribes we hear about frequently if ever. These tribes all have very different ways of life. They eat different things, have different beliefs, wear different clothing, and live in different types of homes. For example the Deni' tribe, the women make their clothing out of blankets, while the Lakota tribes women make their clothing out of deer skin and other animal skin. The Lakota tribe lives in tepees made out of buffalo hide, the Tlingit tribe live in buildings with totem poles posted outside. It was interesting to see these tribes, and experience their culture. I felt like we ventured outside of the classroom for an hour today. See our presentation here.
