Global Awareness Lesson - Attix

For my global awareness lesson, I chose a project from ePals. The particular assignment that I chose was titled "Kites Around the World." In essence, the students would work with children from Pakistan on a project revolving around kites. The students would first discuss kite traditions and compare and contrast their findings. Secondly, the students would work on creating their own kites. This would require a lot of math work, using several operations, measurements, perimeter, and more. The students would work in groups to create these kites and then practice flying them. The students would then make adjustments as necessary, and the end result would serve as their culminating project.

This activity promotes global awareness through the interaction of the students. Through this project, the students would be communicating with other students from Pakistan about their culture, traditions, and beliefs. This would allow the students an opportunity to gain outside perspectives and expand their world view. Many of my students have learned about culture, but have not actually had the chance to speak to another person, especially a student their own age, about cultural differences and similarities. This would give them a first-hand experience.

As the school year has already come to a close for me, I was unable to use this project during this school year. However, it will fit perfectly into our math unit for next year. Through our current math curriculum we cover the areas of multiplication, division, fractions, measurements, area and perimeter, and reasoning. This project would serve as a great way to bring all of these units together. The students could use their knowledge and practice, and turn it into a hands-on project. Since these are topics that we cover already, it will be very easy to incorporate this activity into our unit.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Lauren Lucca on June 17, 2014 at 7:54pm

Krista,

That sounds like a really neat idea! I know the kids would be excited to actually make a kite and then be able to fly their own kite later on! This would definitely work on reviewing their math skills and measurements and they could also be learning about other students' cultures from across the world. I really do think they need that expose to different cultures at an early age. I find that even I struggle to understand the workings of some cultures now as an adult! I really like the fact that this project fits into your curriculum too. My problem is always finding the time to add on fun and neat projects like this. Do you think you would have enough time to do a project like this in your classroom next year?

Permalink Reply by Carly Shields on June 20, 2014 at 8:41am

Wow! This activity sounds SO fun! It's amazing to look on websites like epals.com and see so many wonderful ideas out there. There are so many activities that we can add into our curriculum that seem to align perfectly! The students need activities like this one to boost their engagement in the lesson. Sometimes I think I get too wrapped into routines and daily procedures, but hands on projects are definitely the way to go! Projects like these really get the students involved and thinking! They remember it and it turns learning into something that the students are doing while having fun! I love this idea!!

Permalink Reply by Mary Tippett on June 20, 2014 at 12:05pm

Krista,

I love, love, love this project! I always had a difficult time in math throughout school. In fact, I was looking at my ACT scores the other day (preparing my portfolio) and realized I was in the 13th percentile for Algebra. So not math minded! A unit like this would have made me very excited and able to apply math directly to what I was creating. That's a big problem for many students, not being able to see the connections and becoming frustrated as to why their learning about it in the first place. Math is one of the hardest content areas to integrate successfully, but I think this is a fantastic way to capture student attention and encourage information retention. Awesome job!

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