Communities Around the World 2005
Project Description
This is a year-long project designed for elementary
school students who are studying their Community. The project seeks to
broaden their understanding of and appreciation for their own community as well
as communities
all over the world. It involves classes from all over the United States,
Europe, and Australia. As students study their community, they share
what they have learned by creating web pages
with images from and writing about their community. They have
the opportunity to publish their findings online and learn from their peers
how
their environments
are
alike and different.
There are five different topics relating to community. For each topic, classes
create a webpage to share different aspects of their community and to describe
the
various environments and conditions in
which they live. On their webpage, they post digital pictures relating
to the topic. They may also share what they learned on their
various field trips to different locations in the community such as the Fire
Station, the Police Station, the Post Office, the Hospital, the Grocery Store,
etc.
Students then view each other's web pages to learn how their communities are similar and different. For some schools, this is a cross-age project in which older students help build the "community project" web pages with the primary students and help younger students read the pages.
Internet Public View Galleries
The project is hosted by The Collaboratory at Northwestern University (http://collaboratory.nunet.net). Schools have the option of only publishing their pages within the Collaboratory so that only those with login access can view the pages. They may also publish their pages to Public Internet Galleries that are viewable to anyone with internet access. Below you will find links to the Internet Public View Galleries. Not all schools that participated in the project are represented here.
Introduction: Our Classroom and School and How We Take Care of It
Our City or Town - Important Buildings and Community Helpers
Changing Weather - What the weather is like where we live
What is Unique About Our Community
What we learned about communities around the world