Altering Perspectives: A New Lens in the Classroom
My project needs a digital camera and printer to bring perspectives of the city into the classroom for our social studies curriculum on local geography and history.
FULLY FUNDED! Ms. T.'s classroom raised $598
This project is fully funded
All of the third graders at JC Nalle Elementary School have inquisitive minds and an innate capacity for discovery and exploration, yet most of the students have lived their entire lives in their own neighborhood. The majority of the students are economically disadvantaged and all are racially isolated. Some have ventured outside of their neighborhood with their families or friends; a few have traveled outside of the city. Most of my students have no exposure to the cultural diversity and historic marvels of Washington DC.
This year, my goal in our social studies is to facilitate students' discovery of their city as much as possible by "story-mapping the city." Students will create a large map of the city with stories of historic and cultural sites jettisoning out from the map, in captions. To get information about these sites, we will go on field trips, but we are limited by time and resources, and will only be able to personally visit a few of the significant places in out city
In order to get around these constraints, I plan to bring the city to the classroom, through photographs. As we learn about the geography, monuments, and historic or cultural sites, I want to relate personal encounters and provide visual photographs of those places, and get the photos in the student's hands, so they can visually explore our city. I also want students to document our class field trips by taking ample photographs, to enhance their memories of the places we visit, to stimulate connections, and allow students to document, through a photograph, their new perspectives on Washington DC.
The materials I am requesting to meet this goal are a digital camera and printer. This resource will equip up with the capacity to capture places from the city and bring them back to the classroom. This will enhance students geographic literacy, enrich their memory of our field trips, breathe life into the places we read about but cannot visit as a class, and aid student's exposure to technology.
You support for this project will, literally, alter students perspectives on the world around them.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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