Creativity is Flowing: Costume Day and Project Creation

We had a lot of participation for our school wide favorite book character dress up day!

Groups were hard at work creating their final project pieces to prepare for next Friday's presentations.  Groups are using Minecraft to create a model of the Panama Canal, interviewing immigrants using Google Hangouts, a GoPro, and the professional video equipment and editing software with Mr. Smith's help, website designs using Google Sites and Wix.com, 3D models using Tinkercad, and creating lesson plans to teach to other classes in the building!  I am so proud of all the students and cannot wait to see how much they build on the projects throughout the rest of the school year!

Project Creation: Interviewing Immigrants

One group has taken their driving question and pushed beyond the walls of our building by inviting immigrants to share their experiences with coming to our country.  Yesterday they had an in person interview and today they used Google Hangouts to interview and Dr. Bearden came to see thier great work!

Their Driving Question: During the 1900s, there were many people immigrating to America, and now people are still immigrating here,  so how we can make Immigration easier and more efficient for new immigrants by interviewing many immigrants from different countries and putting their information into a website for people that are thinking about going to the U.S and sharing this with Mr.Dillard’s contact lawyer?

Creating Driving Questions: The First Time!

Students were really excited to create their own driving questions for their turn of the century projects.  They were not used to being pushed to connect their learning to something relevant today and make an impact beyond our classroom.  They really had to push their thinking and have come up with some awesome ideas.  I cannot wait to see how these projects grow over the next few weeks!

Groups' Driving and Branching Questions

Choosing groups based on interest:

Creating Driving Questions:

Working on Proposals and Contacting Experts:

Beginning the Design Process: