Suggested Activities
This challenge invites students to create a drawing or take a photograph that depicts a selected factor that influences their community (geography, culture, language, heritage, economics, or resources). Assign students to work in small groups to create or take a picture of one of the factors. If they are taking photographs, provide each group with a disposable camera or arrange for parents to accompany students to take photographs using their own cameras. Encourage students to consider the following criteria when framing their drawing or photograph: the image is large enough to be recognizable, there is sufficient detail to indicate the factor, the picture matches their assigned factor. When each group has developed/printed several pictures, ask the students to consider the identified criteria in selecting the pictures for display.
Post the pictures on a bulletin board or on a school or class website. Invite other students to identify the factor depicted in specific pictures. Ask students to make a record of the ways in which each factor might affect life in their community (e.g., How does geography influence the people, places, things (natural and cultural artifacts) and activities in the community?). You may want to adapt the chart and strategies for Collecting Information (Support Material) to structure and assess this last activity.
Adapted from Critical Challenges for Primary Students, by Tami McDiarmid, Rita Manzo and Trish Musselle (Richmond, BC: The Critical Thinking Consortium, 2002), 56.
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