CBA Introduction Redux

This past week I introduced our Social Studies CBA (see this post here for the plan behind it). When it was all said and done, my hope was that students would be selecting issues that genuinely concern them. The more difficult part is crafting a question related to that issue, which you'll try to address in a presentation.

I presented kids with images (Internet not original, largely due to lack of time) of wetlands. The first one looked like your standard undeveloped empty lot- a mixture of standing and fallen trees, plants, shrubbery, etc. The second one looked far closer to that of a wetland, with water and grasses mixed in. I had also brought up the point that Redmond has a growing population, illustrated by our school population increase. With those pictures, and their preliminary observations, we made the gentle leap to "What should happen to this land?" How do you accommodate the people who live there, and those that want to live there? Google Earth does a great job of providing satellite views of an area, in our case showing the vastly developed area with mixed in underdeveloped land.

The range of responses to the question above was precisely what I was aiming for. As kids traversed the possible scenarios of a wetland nature preserve and an area shopping mall, the body language (and oral response) was quite striking. "Ohhh no! You couldn't tear that down for a MALL!" Again, this was by design. We talked about who the stakeholders might be, and why they would want a say in what happens there.

Ultimately this produced some great questions...

• (Food in Schools) Can we make school lunches healthier?
• (Smoking in public) Can we stop people from smoking in public?
• (Smog/Greenhouse Gases) How can we lower car pollution?
• (Skateboarding) Why isn't skateboarding in public legal?
• (Gun Control) How do we keep people safe from guns?
• (Video Game Violence) Do violent video games make kids violent?
• (Drugs) How do we stop drug dealing and usage?
• (Racism) How can we stop racism?

The difficult part in this whole process is not having a preconceived argument. The kids need to work from their research instead of crafting their essays/presentations and finding research to support them. Research is also a difficult process, as it requires a degree of patience that I want them to have but that they often lack (at least to the extent that I'd like it). I am encouraged by the start, and hope that they week yields some great stuff. My guess is that, because of the other events taking place in the coming weeks, we're about done with the historical end of things. But I walk into next week cautiously optimistic.