Over the course of the past weeks, the grade 7 students’ at Chestermere Lake Middle School have been working on an exciting and in depth project on immigration in Canada. On May 10th, 2016, members of the public were invited to the school to see and hear these remarkable presentations that these hardworking students have completed
Students will work in groups to analyze how early settlers decided where to live when they originally came to Canada. Students researched and gathered information in four different areas: social, demographic, political, and economic.
Once the students had a clear understanding of how these factors influence how people decide where to live, the students then choose a cultural community that is currently seeking Canada as home (i.e.: Iraq, Iran, Congo, Somalia, Syria) and recommend a suitable city or town in Alberta (from the fourteen towns/cities belonging to the Calgary Regional Partnership), referring to the social, demographic, political, and economic factors that influence and are important to newcomers to Canada.
Throughout the research process, students developed a survey that was then completed by new residents and refugees to Canada with the help of various support groups in Calgary to discover what is important to them in each of these four factors, so they can make the most accurate recommendation possible.
Aja Coe, a grade 7 teacher at Chestermere Lake Middle School, explained to us the goals of this project. “There is one main question that drives the way I design projects for my students: “How can knowledge of the past make us better human beings?”
Learning about history can be boring for kids, so I think it’s important for them to recognize that events from the past are teaching tools for the future. Using events that are currently taking place in the world, such as the Syrian refugee crisis, is the perfect way for them to make those connections between the past and the present. This also made the learning experience more authentic for them, because they were able to learn about the current needs of actual Syrian refugees coming to Canada through the use of the survey they created and were then able to make educated recommendations based on real data, not just based on assumptions they might make about what they think refugees need when they first arrive here”,
Along with Ms. Coe’s grade seven students, Mr. Kunz’s grade seven students also participated which had a total of 14 groups participating in this project. The project incorporated social studies, language arts, and math. “When it came time to analyze the survey results, Mr. Kunz, my teaching partner, taught the students about graphing and data collection, while I focused on the social studies and language arts pieces of the project. It also incorporated all of Rocky View’s 21st Century Skills, such as collaboration, communication, critical thinking, innovation, problem-solving, global awareness, civic engagement, economic and media literacy”, explained Coe.
The May 10th presentations were incredible to see and the quality of the work was well passed what one might expect from seventh graders. The feedback from the evaluations done on the May 10th presentations were used to help determine the top two projects per class, which will be presented on May 16th(12:45 – 2:00pm) to Mayor Patricia Matthews, Kathleen McMurray, CCIS, and Colleen Shepherd, Executive Director of the Calgary Regional Partnership.
The presentations that were selected for those final presentations on May 16th are:
In class 7K –
Group 1 – Bridget Snatic, Jaxon MacGillvary, Kristin Gretener, and Madison Lang who presented about Canmore
Group 2 – Sidney Bodnarchuk, Joel Rietveld, Mya Butler, Elora Eldjarnson who presented about Chestermere
In Class 7X –
Group 1 – Shoaib Heesamuddeen, Lilli Watts, Nisreen Akl, Jaad Amche who presented about Okotoks
Group 2 – Saxon Heath, Talha Amin, Jacob Gall, Lavivian Le – who presented about Calgary
Rocky View Schools Trustee Bev LaPeare was at the May 10th presentations and had this to say about these amazing students. “I was blown away by the depth of knowledge that the kids had in regards to each of their presentations. They were so engaged with what they were doing it was easy to see the enthusiasm and excitement in the presentations. I found it pretty impressive how much cross-curricular work was done without them even realizing it. There were pieces of social studies, math, language arts and their public speaking skills were remarkable. I love how the project really made these kids think outside of their own world and comprehend what it was like for people they were learning about”.
