Frontiers of Exploration:
From the Cell to the Solar System

Teacher's Student Activities

THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A TRANSDISCIPLINARY UNIT.

CURRICULUM FOCUS

A fusion of the social sciences, environmental science, and the arts. It would be most suitable to high school juniors.

INTEGRATE WITH:

Mathematics (demographics and statistics) and the Language Arts.

OBJECTIVES

Students will:

• Study the concept of exploration and its ramifications.
• Become knowledgeable about their immediate environment.
• Plan, carry out, report on, and evaluate a specific exploration.

LITERATURE LINK

(NOVELS FOR GR. 9-12)

• Karon, Jan. AT HOME IN MITFORD. Penguin, 1996. A charming small town in the South as seen through the eyes of Father Tim, the bachelor rector of one of the town's churches.
• Meyer, Carolyn. WHITE LILACS. Harcourt, 1993. Based on the true story of a small community whose dynamics were changed because of a decision to replace the black section of town with a central park and to relocate its residents.
• Ambrose, Stephen. UNDAUNTED COURAGE: MERIWETHER LEWIS, THOMAS JEFFERSON, AND THE OPENING OF THE AMERICAN WEST. Simon & Schuster, 1996. The definitive account of the greatest expedition ever undertaken in the history of this country.
• Davis, Kenneth. DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT AMERICAN HISTORY BUT NEVER LEARNED. Avon, 1995. Humorous, fun and packed with important information.
• Davis, Wade. ONE RIVER: EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN THE AMAZON RAIN FOREST. Touchstone, 1996. Amazing epic of the author's twelve-year journey through the rain forest, mapping and recording his adventures.
• Derr, Mark. THE FRONTIERSMAN: THE REAL LIFE AND THE MANY LEGENDS OF DAVY CROCKETT. Morrow, 1993. Develops both the public figure and the mythic hero.
• Halberstadt, Hans and April. GREAT AMERICAN TRAIN STATIONS: CLASSIC TERMINALS AND DEPOTS. Barnes & Noble, 1997. Photo history of America's historic depots, often the most important building in their towns.
• Kozol, Jonathan. RACHEL AND HER CHILDREN: HOMELESS FAMILIES IN AMERICA. Crown, 1988. Explains how people lose their jobs, their homes, and sometimes their families, as well as why solutions have been ineffective.
• Mackay, Donald. THE BUILDING OF MANHATTAN. Harper and Row, 1987. Includes the people, the machinery, the problems, and the construction involved in building both below and above the ground on the island of Manhattan.
• Morison, Samuel Eliot. ADMIRAL OF THE OCEAN SEA: A LIFE OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. MJF Books, 1970. Pulitzer Prize-winning saga of the voyage the author made to revisit Columbus's journeys.
• Navarro, Victor, and Victoria Rosello and Vicente Salavert. THE BOOK OF DISCOVERIES. Anaya, Madrid, 1992. Examines scientific breakthroughs of the last five hundred years in a very easy, interesting manner.
• Schullery, Paul. SEARCHING FOR YELLOWSTONE: ECOLOGY AND WONDER IN THE LAST WILDERNESS. Houghton Mifflin, 1997. An environmental history of America's first National Park by an author who worked there for 25 years.
• Sloate, Susan. AMELIA EARHEART: CHALLENGING THE SKIES. Fawcett, 1990. Explores the possibile explanations of her disappearance over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.
• Vignozzi, Alessandro. BUILDINGS. Barnes & Noble, 1997. Incredible coverage of all aspects of buildings all over the world.
• Westwood, Jennifer. MYSTERIOUS PLACES: THE WORLD'S UNEXPLAINED SYMBOLIC SITES, ANCIENT CITIES AND LOST LANDS. Galahad Books, 1987. A comprehensive reference, full of photos and explanations for a multitude of sites.

PRE-VIDEO ACTIVITY

We often take our neighborhoods for granted. Seldom do we take the time to identify or communicate with neighbors we see every day. If our jobs, families, or hobbies never cross each other's paths, are we really neighbors? This unit proposes to take a new twist on the idea of exploration. Rather than looking "out there," this unit will explore the near-at-hand. It will attempt to find the unusual or unexpected in what we take to be ordinary experience.

1. Invite three members of the neighborhood to your class for a game of "What's My Line?" For best results, these individuals should possess the face everyone recognizes while no one knows the person behind that face-- their occupation, length of time in the community, hobbies, family members, etc. Even better would be individuals with interesting, unusual, or even dramatic histories -- survivors of plane crashes, war heroes, unique skills, Olympic trial runner-ups, etc.

2. Invite three or four explorers (in the broadest sense of the word) to your class -- doctors, researchers, inventors, scientists, artists, writers, geographic explorers, entrepreneurs, adventurers, musicians, etc. Have the class prepare a set of questions about the nature of exploration, and use the "invited experts" as a panel to answer these questions.

WATCH THE ATV BROADCAST OR VIDEO "FRONTIER OF EXPLORATION."

POST-VIDEO ACTIVITIES: THE NEIGHBORHOOD

This unit will culminate in a major Exhibition [see Sizer's HORACE'S SCHOOL in Resources].

The exact nature of the investigation will vary with the size of the group and the kind of neighborhood your school is set in. The preparation for the Exhibition involves a large number of activities over a long period of time (suggested length is at least one semester); some kinds of activities are suggested below but can be varied widely to take into account local conditions. The unit should conclude with a public presentation. A suggested title might be "A Celebration of the Neighborhood."

ACTIVITY ONE: PREPARATION, THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Conduct whole group brainstorming and/or a webbing activity involving the following questions:

1. What is in the neighborhood?
2. Who is in the neighborhood?
3. What businesses are there?
4. What facilities, public and private, are there?
5. What problems are there?
6. What arts, crafts, products are there?
7. What are the government structures, formal and informal?
8. What social institutions are there?

After a period of brainstorming and recording, the whole group suggests clusters or groupings that make sense to them. Have the group self-select smaller work groups charged with expanding these concepts or questions.

ACTIVITY TWO: PREPARATION, EXPLORATION

Purpose: To answer the question, "What are the ways that one can explore a new place?"

In small groups (randomly selected triads, for example), take the big ideas generated in Activity One, and generate specific questions about the community they are studying. Some examples might include:

How many people go to baseball games?
What radio or TV stations are most popular, and why?
What is the ratio of renters to owners?
How many babies were born in the last year?
Who would most people approach to help them with a problem?

The possibilities are almost endless. After a suitable time, triads would report the results of their research to the whole group, and they would be recorded in some suitable way -- chart paper, database? Some provision could be made for questions that arise later in the exploration sequence, but are considered important.

ACTIVITY THREE: FORMATION OF TASK GROUPS

Select groups of students whose finale research project will culminate in an exhibition during the "Celebration of the Neighborhood." Take care in the formation of these groups, as the students may be working together for as long as three months. Once the groups are formed, they will be responsible for checking with the teacher on a regular basis (weekly?) to give progress reports, ask advice, get resources, etc.

ACTIVITY FOUR: THE EXPLORATION ACTIVITIES

These activities are going to be as varied as the neighborhoods being studied. Some specific ideas for exploration might include:

1. What are the flora and fauna of the neighborhood? Has it changed over time? How can this be discovered? Why have the changes occurred?
2. What are the water sources? What is the water quality?
3. Who is the oldest person in the area? How long have they lived there? What are their stories?
4. What are the civic structures of the area?
5. What is the ratio of business to residence structures? How does this impact the life of the area?
6. What is the land use of the area? What square footage of pavement, residence, and other structures are there?
7. What is the oldest structure in the area. Treat it as an archeological site. Is it a palimpsest?
8. What human organizations are there in the area? Clubs? Meeting areas? Where do people meet? Why do they meet?
9. What can be found when a quadrant search is made of a specific area?
10. What arts and crafts are found in the area? Who produces and consumes these? Are they unique? Do they come from the area or are they imported? exported?

ACTIVITY FIVE: PREPARATION OF THE EXHIBITION

The exhibition could occur in a wide variety of formats:

1. a performance activity: a role-play, acted-out history, written play, series of news reports, or similar idea, in person or recorded on videotape
2. a performance activity: some artistic representation of the neighborhood such as songs, music, poetry, visual art, cartoon series, poster series, etc.
3. an extended science report outlining in written form (or electronic form) some discovery about the physical nature of the area. (e.g. water quality, pollutants, sources of them, etc.)
4. a demographic report on the nature of the neighborhood, with specific charts, tables, data showing some trends in the area
5. a photo or video record of architectural detail, construction techniques, housing types, other building types.
6. a geographical study of some aspect of the neighborhood-- land use, business clusters, traffic patterns, etc. presented using maps, charts, photo arrays, models, miniatures, computer graphics, etc.
7. a human geography study of loci of power and structures of power (formal and informal) presented using video, photos, charts, flowcharts, etc.
8. an historical study of the neighborhood with documents, photos, interviews, models and miniatures, etc.
9. a print magazine produced as a desktop publication with a title like "The Life of A Neighborhood"
10. a home page on the World-Wide Web outlining the life of the neighborhood.

PERFORMANCE-BASED ASSESSMENT: PRESENTATION OF THE EXHIBITION

Groups will be responsible for presenting their part of the exhibition at a predetermined time. The teacher will assemble a panel of judges appropriate for each kind of presentation, and preferably from the neighborhood itself. Part of the grade should come from this panel of judges, part from a self-assessment by each student, and part from a peer assessment by the other groups. The students should be involved in the organization of every aspect of this presentation, which can be approached as a series of problem-solving exercises.

SELF-EVALUATION (individual or group)

1. Develop an assessment rubric. Some questions that can be included are:

What would I/we do differently if I/we had to do this exploration again?
What were the most valuable insights gained from the exploration?
What did I/we lose by doing this exploration? Was it important?
What technical skills/abilities did I/we develop? Will they be important in the future?
How has this exploration changed my/our view of the neighborhood? of people in general?
Did I/we meet all our goals in this exploration? Why or why not? What can still be learned about exploring in general? What can still be learned about the neighborhood?
What did I/we discover about myself/ourselves during this exploration?

2. Have the students compile a process journal outlining the life of their Exhibition, and their reflections on its process. This is as much an exploration (of self) as any other kind! NOTE: This must be assigned at the START of the unit.

PEER EVALUATION

Have the students assist in the development of an assessment rubric. They might want to evaluate:

the visual/aural impact of the presentation
the depth/breadth of detail
the clarity of the information
the appropriateness of the presentation media to the information