Wells and Clean Water Part 2

I met with my two Fifth Grade classes last Wednesday and we started the research portion of our project. I began by categorizing the questions they came up with the week before in their KWL Moodle Forum discussions. Their questions fell into the following categories:

• Engineers - Responsible for sharing well designs and ways to keep well clean.
• Global Corespondents- Responsible for direct communication with the Cambodian students.
• Health Workers - Responsible for teaching us what happens when people drink contaminated water.
• Ambassadors - Responsible for teaching us about Cambodia and its people, with attention to the governments efforts to bring clean water to Cambodian villages.
• Aid Workers - Responsible for reviewing the different Aid Organizations and making a recommendation to our group: Which organization best fits our plans to "Make a Difference?"
  

I created a Moodle "Choice" survey so students could select their groups. The next time I'll set limits to the number of students in each group and open the survey at the same time for both classes (something students in my second class faulted me for not doing). The result is that I have two engineering groups and two health worker groups, but just one group all the others. Ideally, I would have the students work "cross classrooms."

Each Team created a Google Doc for their team and shared it with me.

Lindsay and I created a Google Doc with links to a variety of resources. Students will have two weeks to complete their research.

I feel things are going well, except that I only see my 5th graders once-a-week for about 40 minutes. It's hard to maintain momentum.

Thoughts?

Making a Difference (Lindsay and Renee's project)

Lindsay (6th grade) and I (5th grade) are working together on our Inquiry-based learning project. Under the umbrella of Making a Difference, we decided to take advantage of a unique opportunity. One of our teachers took a year sabbatical to work with different classrooms around the world. Here is a link to her blog. Her interest and objective is to help these students share stories about themselves with the rest of the world. Our students have been "following" her and listening to the stories of the young people she meets. We've also participated in two Skype sessions.

Using this video as a prompt, our students first responded in KWL fashion using Moodle Forums to two questions:

1) What did you learn from watching and listening to this video?

2) What questions were not answered in the video? What questions do you still have?

The video is narrated by a Cambodian HS student who, with his team, created a video about the dwindling number of wells and clean water in his village.

In addition, I had them answer a survey question: Does your family get their water from a well?

Lindsay and I will take their questions and after sorting and coming up with themes, we will create a Google Doc for different questions. Then the students will do research to answer the questions. Based on what they come up with, we'll move to the next step in deciding what action to take in order to make a different.

Lindsay has located a local professor who is a member of Engineers Without Borders. We're hoping to get him in to speak with our students.

That's what we're doing.