Your browser is currently not supported. Please upgrade to enjoy all that Thinkfinity has to offer!

Community Works

Community Works packages elements of different Thinkfinity resources into a single, multifaceted afterschool or classroom project.

Objectives

  • Discuss the ways that narrative and vivid illustrations combine in a picture book to advance social justice issues.
  • Build understanding of community behavior by researching penguins and reflecting on the roles people play in their own communities.
  • Design and carry out a service learning project, taking photographs to document the experience.

Overview

If people participated in their communities like emperor penguins, then the world might be a better place. This multidisciplinary project engages middle school-age youth in a study of community behavior, then guides groups in designing and documenting their own service learning project. In the process, they build literacy skills, practice scientific inquiry and improve their photography technique.

 

Step 1: Getting Started

Before sharing the book, “A Chair for My Mother,” by Vera B. Williams, discuss the concept of social justice. Then after the story, talk about the ways the book illustrates social justice and other issues that affect vulnerable members of a community. Lead the conversations to examples of how individual members of a community support one another.

View resource: Crit Lit for Kids: From Critical Consciousness to Service Learning by ReadWriteThink

Focus on: Sessions 1 & 2 for good discussion questions

 

Step 2: Find Out More

Investigate how penguins live and participate in a community by watching a preview for the film “March of the Penguins,” a Creature Feature on emperor penguins, or a Crittercam of animals in Antarctica.

View resource: It Takes a Rookery by Xpeditions

 

Step 3: Piece It Together

Ask the group to think about how people help each other in their own community, and give them the opportunity to carry out a service learning project that they design based on community needs.

View resource: It Takes a Rookery by Xpeditions

Focus on: Do Something About It

 

Step 4: Share What’s Learned

Encourage the group to celebrate both their service and their learning by showing photographs of their work in the community. For inspiration, explore Community PhotoWorks, a Look-Listen-Learn module featuring an online gallery of student photographs and artist's statements, as well as resources for teaching analysis of visual media and photography techniques. Of particular relevance for this project, The Language of Photography offers pointers on capturing images that tell a story.

View resource: The Language of Photography by ARTSEDGE

 
 

Age: Middle school
Themes: Service learning, biology/anthropology, photography
Duration: 3-6 weeks

 

 
  • Materials Needed
  • Computer with Internet access
  • Still cameras
  • Poster board or other display for exhibiting photographs
 
  • Standards

IRA/NCTE Standards Geography Standards

  • Standard 1: Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment
  • Standard 7: Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems
  • Standard 8: Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge

National Geography Standards

  • Standard 10: The characteristics, distribution, and complexity of Earth's cultural mosaics