Social+Studies+Ideas

Ideas related to the subject of Social Studies.

Here are a few ideas I have done with Social Studies in an effort to connect the Civil War with the Johnson's Island field trip, an idea given to me by Dr. Bush during his presentation before our field trip. The link and document is a word document 2007/2010 and I could post it in another format later if you contacted me with a request. One of the changes I will make in the future will be to have students research prisoners from Johnson's Island and what battles they were captured and use that to connect to this battle project. Originally the use of students writing from the period was used to create a bit of historical perspective but can see this part being attributed to a language arts cross curricular experience.

Using technology to integrate into the project could be useful for a variety of reasons, I think if students could create a PowerPoint presentation to describe an individual for a research assignment like the one above could be great use for utilizing state curriculum standards with national technology standards. Teaching students to create similar projects to my example here could be something students might learn from that might push their creativity to seek other software available out there as they get to high school and college. We are living in a technological society and the importance of teaching students the relevance of field experiences of Johnson's Island and connecting it with technology might help us to see a connection with history that will continue into the future, before the robots take control.

Something else I haven't done yet but am considering would be for our students to create a "documentary" of their experience surrounding this field trip. I would like them to conduct interviews, research, film, and edit while putting together a video that might answer the question of why a field trip like this could be a valuable learning experience. As educators I think we realize the importance, but to hear ideas and responses from a student perspective could be a valuable learning experience for us all. Also, it could give credence to a suggestion fellow teacher Mr. Jaworski mentioned to me earlier this week that classes that go on the field trip could skype with one another about things they found. They could even interview students from other schools, of course proper paperwork needs to be signed and this would take special planning. But this could be a great way for those that do go on the field trip to show others that may not be able to what can be learned from the experience.