Students use Library of Congress primary sources to plan, take, and document a trip around the world in 1896.

Emotions are important. Students will work in groups to come up with an example of how an emotion can help us in our daily lives and oppositely how an emotion could hinder us. Students will use chart paper to make a one-pager poster of their example. After, students can gallery walk and present their ideas.

In this eight-week module, students explore the idea of adversity of people across time and place, and through multiple modes of writing. Students begin this module with a research-based unit on the Middle Ages. They read informational articles about various aspects of medieval life, learning and practicing the skills of summarizing an article, analyzing how ideas are developed across a text, and describing how a part of a text contributes to the whole. Students then break into expert groups to read closely about one demographic group. They practice the informational reading skills they have learned and explore the adversities faced by that group. In the second half of Unit 1, students write an informational essay based on their research as their end of unit assessment. In Unit 2, students use their background knowledge built during Unit 1, but move to reading literature: Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village. This is a book of monologues told from the perspective of children living in the same village during the Middle Ages. Students have dual tasks: First, they identify the various adversities faced by this cast of characters; secondly, they examine the author’s craft, specifically by identifying and interpreting figurative language in the monologues as well as analyzing how word choices affect the tone of the text. In the second half of Unit 2, students write a literary argument to address the question “Do we struggle with the same adversities as the people of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!?” In Unit 3, students move into modern voices of adversity by reading concrete poems in the books Blue Lipstick and Technically, It’s Not My Fault. These concrete poems highlight adversities faced by the speakers of the poems, an adolescent girl and her younger brother. Students apply the same reading skills they learned in the reading of Unit 2, but this unit is discussion-based, allowing teachers to assess students’ speaking and listening skills in small group discussions about the texts. For their performance task, students choose a writing format—narrative, like the monologues of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!, or concrete poem—and write their own text about adversities faced by sixth-graders. Students then perform their writing for a group of their peers.

Coastal wetlands bring many benefits to ecosystems including their ability to sequester carbon and mitigate fluctuations in sea levels. Students will understand the ecosystem benefits of coastal wetlands with a focus on the potential of estuaries for climate related planning.

 This inquiry unit leads students through the different perspectives behind a decision to have a dam removed. This unit looks at similar Washington state dam removal decisions as well as the complex issue of having the Election dam removed near Puyallup, WA. Students will be introduced to the stories and traditional ways of knowing about salmon that the Puyallup Tribe has built their culture upon. Then they will explore the science behind hydroelectricity and build models to discover how carbon neutral energy is gathered through hydro dams. This inquiry unit ends with students researching different perspectives surrounding the current (2021) decision to remove the Electron dam including: the Tribe’s Fishery department, the ecosystem, the city council, the fishermen and the hydro-electrical company who currently owns the dam. With their research, students will do a socratic seminar to mimic the court case lawsuit that is ongoing against the Electron Dam. 

Objectives of this mini unit:For students to explore the "universal call to action" laid out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and consider how they may respond to that call;Build background knowledge about specific issues impacting the Arctic including: indigenous rights, indigenous health, biodiversity, tourism and marine pollution; Build background knowledge about specific issues impacting their local communtiy (using Michigan as a case-study) including: hunger, homelessness, poverty, youth violence and the environment;Create an action plan to address needs within their local communities driven by their unique passions, interests and skills;Consider the importance of impact vs intention when engaging with community action projects

Based on the Wyoming PBS program What’s in a Name, students will view episodes of the program to learn about how Wyoming towns got their names. In the introductory video Phil Roberts from the University of Wyoming introduces the PBS series entitled “Main Street Wyoming: What’s in a Name”. This introductory clip discusses how early explorers first named the rivers, streams, and mountain ranges and passes of Wyoming. Students will then work as a group to create a fictitious Wyoming town.