Tuning In to Our Inquiry
Our Year 6 Camp to Bandung helped us begin to think about possible issues for Exhibition. We also became a stronger team throughout the week, as we took on challenges and participated in a variety of team-building exercises.
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Students inquired into the UN Sustainable Development Goals. After reading through the generic descriptions of the 17 goals, students chose their top 3 favorite goals to research. After researching the goals, students created FlipGrid videos to teach others about and raise awareness for their favorite goal.
In art class, students chose one UNSDG and redesigned the logo, using keywords to guide their choices. |
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Guest Speaker- Ms Icus
Ms Icus visited our class to share her experience volunteering with refugee children in Jakarta. Most of the refugees are between 9-18 years old from Afghanistan. She shared that she has taught them batik and handicraft making, sewing, and cooking. Ms Icus has even helped the refugees start a small catering business, where they cook and sell meals every Thursday. The profits support the refugees' living expenses. The students were excited to learn more about Ms Icus's authentic action!
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Guest Speaker- Ms Wendi
Ms Wendi talked to us about her experience WWOOFing, where she spent 7 weeks in Ireland volunteering on an organic farm. She learned about the importance of organic farming and met many new people. She was really excited to live out her values of caring for our earth in this way. She shared that she is really excited to participate in WWOOFing again in the future.
To learn more about WWOOFing, visit their website: World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms |
Guest Speakers- Year 7 Students
Year 7 students visited our class to share their Exhibition experience from last year. Last year students worked on a variety of issues and presented in different ways. The Year 7's also gave the students tips for what they should do during our Exhibition. They reminded us to be very organized, use our time wisely, follow the weekly checklists, and spend more time on research and the 'real work' as opposed to the props and presentation materials for the class presentation, since that's such a small part of the Exhibition.
Thank you for coming to talk with us Year 7! |
Exploring Issues
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During our first week of Exhibition, we've explored possible issues in a variety of ways. During the month leading up to Exhibition, students inquired into current events and presented a summary of the event, the global issues connected to the event, and possible solutions/action we can take. We also viewed a variety of photos and videos to identify issues, making a list of our ideas. The inquiry into the UNSDG helped us identify global issues, too. We are almost ready to choose our issue for Exhibition!
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Our Favorite UN Sustainable Development Goals
Finding Out
We've chosen our issues for Exhibition!
Following our tuning-in activities, students decided on which issue they were most passionate about for their Exhibition. Before their issues were approved, students completed a checklist, ensuring that it connected to Sharing the Planet, was a local and global issue, sparked many questions, would be an issue they could research for 8 weeks using a variety of primary and secondary sources, and would allow them to share their learning in a variety of ways.
Check out our issues and let us know if you have any expertise you can share with us! |
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Questions Connected to the Key Concepts
Once we chose our issues for Exhibition, we started asking loads of questions. The questions we asked will help guide our research. After brainstorming questions, we categorized them by the key concepts of Responsibility, Perspective, Form, Change, Function, Connection, and Causation. Next week, we will write our lines of inquiry, which will connect to the key concepts, so we will refer back to our guiding questions for support with this.
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Finding Resources
After we gathered our initial questions, we began looking for resources to help us with our research. We used a variety of secondary sources, such as the school library for books, search engines for articles and informational sites, in Encycolopedia Britannica's database, on EPIC books, and YouTube for informative or thought-provoking videos. Next week we will begin inquiring into primary sources.
Click here for resources connected to students' issues. This is just a start...the sky's the limit! Ask your child/mentee to share which resources they are finding helpful in their research. |
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Writing our Central Idea and Lines of Inquiry
Writing Central Ideas and Lines of Inquiry can be tricky. To get started, we looked at our school's Programme of Inquiry for ideas. We discussed what we saw and realized that central ideas are neutral statements that act as an 'umbrella' topic to guide our learning. The lines of inquiry are more specific and aren't statements, but read as phrases that can follow "An inquiry into...". Each line of inquiry connects directly to at least one key concept.
Before jumping into writing our central ideas and lines of inquiry, we first brainstormed key words or phrases connected to our issue. We wrote each key word/phrase on a hexagon and used the hexagonal thinking strategy to connect ideas together, showing our understanding and helping us determine what we wanted to learn more about. Here's my example that I modeled with my issue of homelessness. |
After connecting my key words in the hexagonal thinking strategy, I began to draft my lines of inquiry, based on the ideas that came out of my previous thinking/brainstorm. Below is my first draft. I still need to wordsmith them a bit more.
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After watching me model the process, the students started the process of writing their own central idea and lines of inquiry. Students were given the option of working independently or with others who were inquiring into similar issues. We are all still in progress, but the goal is to finalize these this week. Once we do, we will post them onto our Exhibition websites. They are off to a great start and are coming up with some very clever central ideas and lines of inquiry. I'm so proud of them!
During our weekly check-in meetings, we've been having such rich discussions as they work through the process and narrow down their issues to what they want to truly learn about. Ask your child/mentee to tell you about their central idea and lines of inquiry. |
Ways to Share Our Learning
Even though we are just beginning to research and gather information about our issues, we started thinking about how we could share our learning with the learning community. We began by brainstorming ideas and then discussing a variety of ideas for each of the required elements of Exhibition. We will work together as a class to co-construct our assessment criteria for each of the components. In the meantime, keep thinking about possible ways to share your learning with others. These ideas are plentiful, but by no means are they the only ideas out there. Keep your minds open!
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Here's the TED Talk shown in the slideshow above. It's a great example if students want to present their learning as a TED Talk to the learning community.
The file below is a PDF of the slideshow above.
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Let's Research!
Research is something that's been a huge part of our discussions since Exhibition has begun. The students have been dipping in and out of research mode. Researching (in the form of watching videos, skimming and scanning books or articles, and talking to one another) helped us form a basic understanding of our issue and start to ask more questions about aspects we wanted to dig into a little deeper. As we formed questions, we've been taking notes when we come across facts in our research that can help us find the answers to those questions.
In class, we've had a few lessons on researching and note-taking skills. We are using the Big 6 model for research. You can learn more about it here. We've learned about the importance of keeping our notes organized and neat, so that we can easily find information, and we've started to talk more about citing sources. Tomorrow Mr Heri will teach us how to cite sources, and we will start to keep track of our sources on our Bibliography page of our website. |
Here is an example of a way to organize notes digitally.
Below are a couple of graphic organizers that have been introduced in class to help keep track of research notes.
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Don't Forget to Cite Your Sources
Mr Heri came into our class this week to teach us about the importance of citing our sources. Part of our Academic Honesty Declaration is to properly cite sources that we use to get information from while researching. Mr Heri showed us a few possible websites that make it really easy to insert information from the source and get the citation. We were then given some time to practice, and many of us were able to put sources on the 'Bibliography' tab of our websites. This is something we will need to keep doing as we continue our research.
Click here to access links to citation resources. |
Assessment Criteria
To create shared ownership over the assessment for the PYP Exhibition, we began the process of co-constructing the assessment criteria. We will revisit this next week in order to co-construct assessment rubrics. We thought of some really great ideas!
Primary & Secondary Sources
Today we inquired into Primary and Secondary sources. To do this, we researched with a partner and created shared lists as a class. The ones in blue are ideas that are classified as both Primary and Secondary sources.
Primary sources provide raw information and first-hand evidence. Secondary sources interpret, analyze or summarize primary sources. The aim of our research is to include a mix of both Primary and Secondary sources. Following our brainstorm of examples, we discussed ways we could use Primary sources in our research this week. |
Creating Surveys
You can create surveys as a way to gather information from primary sources. Survey Monkey is a good way to do this. Today in math we practiced creating surveys for our issues. Students may continue to work on these this week.
Our class account is: login: exhibition2020 password: acgyear6 Click here to see my example of a survey on homelessness. |
How can we reflect on our daily blog posts?
When you are reflecting on your blogs each day, it's important to truly reflect on your learning, rather than just listing what you did. Use the prompts above to help guide your reflections. You need to refer to the Blog Checklist and Rubric as well to guide you. Click here to access it.
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How to Interview Someone
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How to Make a Phone Call
Whenever you are making a telephone call or a call on Skype of Facetime, remember to be prepared and be polite to the person you are calling. For more tips, have a look at the slideshow.
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Sorting Out
Taking ACTION!
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What does it mean to take ACTION? Does it mean donating money or having a bake sale? It can, but action in the PYP Exhibition is so much more than that. To explore more about action, watch the videos below and review the information provided.
Head over to our class FlipGrid (code: pypexhibition2020), click on the ACTION topic, and create a video to tell about the action you plan to take for your Exhibition. FlipGrid videos need to be uploaded by Friday, 13 March. |
This is an example of what the Exhibition and ACTION is NOT. It's not about going crazy, it's about taking small actions against a big issue to make an impact in the world.
Anyone can make change. You have to work on an issue that you are passionate about. We all have power to make change. Many of us do nothing because we think it won't help. Take action!
In an effort to make a difference to the amount of plastic waste, this person challenged herself to go 30 days without any single-use plastic. It wasn't always easy, but she stuck with it!
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This video is a great example of how one small action can lead to a chain reaction. You can never know what your action might do to influence other people!
Action can be making something. Check out what these people did. They used trash that had been thrown out to create instruments for kids who couldn't afford them.
Have you ever thought about how much waste each person creates each year? This person took on a huge challenge to live a zero waste life. She shares her experience here.
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Inspired by true events, One Hen tells the story of Kojo, a boy from Ghana who turns a small loan into a thriving farm and a livelihood for many. One Hen shows what happens when a little help makes a big difference.
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To raise awareness about plastic pollution in the world, this man (from Indonesia!) ran over 3,000 miles across the United States, sharing his mission to eliminate plastic pollution in our oceans.
Action Cycle
Choose What choices can you make based on your reflections? Act How can you carry out and follow through with your choices? Reflect Explain the consequences of your actions. |
Six Ways to Take ACTION...
There's more than one way!
Creating our Virtual Presentations
How to Set Up Your Homepage
Here's an example of how your homepage should be set up. The video below will explain what to do.
Promoting the Virtual PYP Exhibition
To spread the word about our Virtual PYP Exhibition, Izzie and Aahana collaborated to create a poster and a promo video to be shared with the other classes in Primary, as well as the wider ACG community and parents.
Reflecting on Personal Understandings
Reflecting on the process of Exhibition, looking at how we have changed and grown as learners throughout this process, is one of the most important aspects of the Exhibition. The journey of learning is what this experience is all about.
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