PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

• What social issue will your video conference address?

The social issue my video conference will address is the lack of clean drinking water.  Students will research the effects drinking polluted water and how this impacts a person’s health. 

• What subject(s) and grade level(s) would be appropriate for students to be involved?

As part of the Third Grade ELA curriculum, students read the book, A Long Walk To Water by  Linda Sue Park. To put themselves in the main character’s shoes and understand the character’s life, students carry a gallon of water around with them all day long. This Global Encounters lesson will tie into the ELA and Social Studies curriculum.

• Who would be your ideal guest speaker?

My ideal guest speaker would be an environmental conservationist to speak to the third grade. I would want the environmental conservationists to discuss the impact pollution has on our Earth on both the land and water. Through this conversation, it is my goal students can connect how water becomes so polluted and impacts what we ultimately drink. 

• Would you seek to involve other schools from your community, across the country, or from particular countries or regions around the world to foster the ideal conversation?

I would love to involve students in our school community to start the initiative of using less plastic water bottles in schools. It would be explained to students how this correlates with polluted water.   Hopefully we will then be able to start this initiative in the other elementary schools in the community. Our goal will be to model for other schools districts in the country how to reduce plastics which ultimately pollutes our environment. 

• What type of activity would students complete before the video conference session that they could share during the conference?

Prior to the video conference, students will read A Long Walk To Water where they will learn about the issues of minimal clean drinking water in South Sudan. As a class, we will discuss how clean drinking water is a global issue that we face today. We will brainstorm ways to conserve water as well as reduce materials that pollute our environment. 

• Would there be a follow-up action that students would take to deepen their learning?

Collaboratively, students will create public service announcements that will be displayed throughout our school to encourage awareness of this ongoing problem. Students will have the option to create their public service announcement through the use of technology, through drawings or speech. 

• How would you assess their participation?

Students will be assessed based on their public service announcements. Within their announcement, they should state five facts about the importance of conserving water as well as the impacts clean drinking water has on our health.

PROJECT DOCUMENTS

• Global Encounters Project