Communities--Using the Past and the Present to Create a Better Future

The class will work together to develop a list of questions for each student to use while interviewing a grandparent or an elderly person from their family. This list of questions will be typed on a word processor.

The students will use digital cameras to take various photos of their interviews and each interview will be recorded on a digital audio recorder.

These will be brought back to the classroom where all digital photos will be cataloged into various collections of photos using a data base program.

The students will then use a word processor to create scripts for creative videos created using software enhanced with green screen technology. This will be a collection of all of the students’ interviews with visuals and formatted like a newscast. Each student will participate in the newscast.

In addition to the newscast, each student will create their own podcast using their recorded interviews.

Taking the information they have learned through their interviews, the students will predict how they can use the experiences of their grandparents to help create a better future for no only themselves, but their families as well.

The students will have their parents sign out a digital camera to visually record some of the different cultures represented in the class. We have a varied mixture of students from not only the United States, but from different countries in Central and South America. Authentic photos of the lives of their relatives from these different places and cultures will be used as a study in different cultures (These photos will also be cataloged using a data base program).


The students will work in groups to create and present information about their unique culture to the rest of the class. Parents, grandparents, and other family members will be used as one of many references as well as information from the school library and the internet. These presentations will be the students’ own creations but will rely heavily on photos to visually demonstrate different cultures. Some suggestions for projects will be acrostic poems, ABC mini books of the culture, postcards with photos and information, videos, powerpoints, etc.