My Vacation

I though I would share with you all a Social Studies activity that I had to do when I was in the sixth grade. I can't remember exactly what the teacher called it, but I will call it "My Vacation". We were told we were going to do a "research project" on a vacation spot of our choice. The teacher had a list of different national landmarks, and popular vacation spots for us to choose from, and we all had to have a different one. We were told to research the spot and present information about it to our class. We had one week to complete it. We never worked on it in class, we had to come up with our own resources, and if we had questions about it, we had to ask the teacher in between classes. Looking back on this research project, I think it had great potential. At the time, it was a hassel for me and my classmates due to the lack of resources and the confusion it accumulated. However, in today's world, I think this would not even be considered a "research project" to students, it would be to them more of a fun activity. Doing this would be a great way for students to learn about other cultures. We could provide students with a rubric of what we expect from them and allow them time to work on it in their centers. There are so many resources students can easily access today, as well. When I was doing this project, I did not have a computer at home, and we couldn't use the ones in the library for anything but our AR tests, so I had to rely mainly on books I rented from the city library. I also bought an Atlas, and contacted family I had that lived near the location I chose. But today, the only thing that seperates students from the world are our fingertips. If we have students participate in activities like this that they actually enjoy, we will be promoting more learning this way rather than have them sit down and take notes off of a power point that the teacher put together.