IO Project

We took on an inquiry study with our Grade 5 students into the issue of homelessness in Calgary. We followed an incredible journey and this website documents our planning, curriculum links and resources.

For further details and student work, please see our "Home to 1,000,000" Website at http://projects.cbe.ab.ca/glendale/showcase/1000000/index.html

Enjoy and thank you for visiting!

Mrs. Megan Liddell and Ms. Lisa Temrick

Our inquiry work into the issue of homelessness in a growing city such as Calgary connected many SLEs under the subjects of Language Arts and Social Studies. We have outlined these below.

Curriculum

Language Arts

1.1- Discover and Explore (Express ideas and develop understanding, experiment with language and forms, express preferences)
1.2- Clarify and Extend (Consider others' ideas, combine ideas, extend understanding)

2.1- Use strategies and cues (Use prior knowledge, use comprehension strategies, use textual clues, use references)
2.2- Respond to texts(Experience various texts, construct meaning from text, appreciate the artistry of text)
2.3 - Understand Forms, Elements and Techniques (understand forms and genres, understand techniques and elements, experiment with language)
2.4 - Create original text (Generate ideas, elaborate on the expression of ideas, structure texts)

3.1 - Plan and Focus (Focus attention, determine information needs, plan to gather information)
3.2 - Select and Process (Use a variety of sources, access information, evaluate sources)
3.3 - Organize, record and evaluate (Organize information, record information, evaluate information)
3.4 - Share and Review (Share ideas and information, review research process)

4.1 - Enhance and Improve (Appraise own and others' work, revise and edit, enhance legibility, expand knowledge of language, enhance artistry)
4.2 - Attend to Conventions (Attend to grammar and usage , attend to spelling, attend to capitalization and punctuation)
4.3- Present and Share (present information, enhance presentation, use effective oral and visual communication, demonstrate attentive listening and viewing)

5.1- Respect others and strengthen community (appreciate diversity, relate texts to culture, celebrate accomplishments and events, use language to show respect)
5.2- Work within a group (Cooperate with others, work in groups, evaluate group process)

Curriculum

Social Studies- Concepts

5.2- Histories and Stories of Ways of Life in Canada
5.2.1: Appreciate the complexity of identity in the Canadian complex

5.3: - Shaping an Identity
5.3.1: Appreciate how changes impact citizenship and identity
5.3.4: Critically assess how economic booms and crashes affect ways of life in Canada

Curriculum

Social Studies- Skills and Processes

Skills and Processes
5.s.1: Develop skills of critical and creative thinking.
5.s.4: Demonstrate skills of decision-making and problem-solving
5.s.5: Demonstrate skills of cooperation, conflict resolution and consensus building.
5.s.6: Develop age appropriate behaviour for social involvement as responsible citizens contributing to their community.
5.s.7: Apply the research process
5.s.8: Demonstrate skills of oral, written and visual literacy.
5.s.9: Develop skills of media literacy

Students were engaged in a wide variety of tasks and activities culminating to a final project that was generated from their understanding and inspirations.

Activity

What does 1,000,000 mean for Calgary?

Our students will be participating in some daily conversations about Calgary's growing population, and asked to contribute their thoughts and ideas toward this issue. We will generate questions we have, potential positive and negative effects we can foresee, or are already experiencing in our own lives. The students are asked to ask about this issue at home, and take notes on their family's reaction, questions, concerns, and ideas. Once back at school, they are asked to journal about this conversation and add their own perspective on the ideas and feedback they received. In addition, students are asked to watch their local news, read online, and listen to the radio for any stories that pertain to Calgary's population influx. (For example, the EMS/Fire departments asking for $24,000,000 to hire 200 more EMS/Fire professionals.)

Start:Sep 6, 2006End:Sep 15, 2006

Activity

Visual representation of Calgary's increasing population Students were asked to create a document using only images that would tell a "story" regarding their opinions, concerns, questions and knowledge regarding Calgary's population boom. The knowledge for this assignment came from previous as well as from the classroom conversations we've had over the last week.
Start:Sep 8, 2006End:Sep 15, 2006

Activity

Introduction to homelessness After narrowing down our topic students were invited to participate in a classroom discussion regarding their understanding of homelessness. After, they were asked to view the ILS website http://www.thehomeless.ca and bring back a piece of information that they discovered. We talked about the many reasons why people become homeless and really focused on stereotypes.
Start:Sep 25, 2006End:Sep 25, 2006

Activity

Fly Away Home

Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting was introduced as a book as well as a movie. Students were asked to comment on the theme of the book and then compare formats - book vs movie. What was more effective? Why? Students were asked to create a page in their sketch book to represent their understanding of the book. Focus was on characters and the emotions each character had throughout the story

Start:Sep 26, 2006End:Sep 26, 2006

Activity

Lady in a Box Read book and watched video. Compared the effects and strengths of each media. Focused on stereotypes. Made class web about homeless stereotypes. Asking students to really focus on the different types of media for future project.
Start:Oct 3, 2006End:Oct 3, 2006

Activity

What is Home? Class discussion around what is home? Students will be asked to think about what could they do without to still consider themselves with a home. What do you have to loose to become homeless?
Start:Oct 6, 2006End:Oct 6, 2006

Task

Being Part of the Solution- Calgary Organizations

Students will be asked in a group of 5 to research and find information about one Calgary organization helping with homelessness (these will be assigned from a master list). They will need to collaborate within their group, compare information, and create a short presentation with visuals to share with the group in order to teach each other about the different organizations and key individuals who are "making a difference" in the lives of homeless families.

Start:Oct 16, 2006End:Oct 20, 2006

Activity

Bonnie Malach from Homeless Awareness Will vist and introduce Homeless Awareness. Children will be able to ask questions and see homelessness through the eyes of someone working directly with the homeless.
Start:Oct 19, 2006End:Oct 19, 2006

Activity

Myrna from Habitat for Humanity

Will visit the class and introduce Habitat for Humanity and share the Calgary projects. Students will make lunches for site workers. We tried to go and work on site for the day but it was against Workers Comp. regulations. Students will generate a letter to go home explaining what we are doing and why we need food for the workers. A committee will be created to keep all the food donations, time frame and food preperation organized.

Start:Oct 19, 2006End:Oct 26, 2006

Activity

CLO Darren Lepp Area 2 CLO Darren Lepp will come talk to us about the legalities regarding homelessness in Calgary and in Glendale.
Start:Oct 27, 2006End:Oct 27, 2006

Activity

Tash and Chris from Mount Royal College

Students will meet Natasha and Chris, who led the Mount Royal College students' event "Night in the Cold", in which the students spent a night sleeping outside in the Mount Royal College parking lot to experience homelessness. In addition, Chris will present his documentary about his experience travelling across the city on a cold night without any money or supplies.

Start:Nov 2, 2006End:Nov 2, 2006

Task

Inspirational Quotes

In class we will be taking up quotes and unpacking them. After a week of study, students will be asked to think about the kinds of quotes that might provide hope to people who feel that they are in a hopeless situation. Homework will be to find one quote that is meaningful to them. Students will then be asked to artistically represent their quote, putting art to the words as they learned with artist Angelique Gillespie. These quote posters will be laminated to be taken to the Mustard Seed when we go and offered to them for their walls.

Start:Oct 16, 2006End:Nov 6, 2006

Activity

Field Trip to CUPS and Mustard Seed

Our classes will go to both Calgary Urban Project Society (CUPS) and the Mustard Seed Street Ministry. We will be touring both places, as well as meeting staff and volunteers. At the Mustard Seed students will be delivering a collection of "Feet for the Street" socks that were collected by our school community, as well as volunteering in the Santa's Workshop, creating bags of candy for children for Christmas.

Start:Dec 11, 2006End:Dec 11, 2006

Task

Desire2Learn Online Discussion Forum

Students are asked to participate on an ongoing basis to online discussion forums around the topics of homelessness and poverty though D2L. They will be interacting and responding to students, teachers and experts from around the world as they discuss the causes, problems and solutions associated with poverty in their countries. Students are required to use appropriate forum ettiquette as well as technique.

Start:Dec 1, 2006End:Mar 1, 2007

Task

Faces of the Homeless

Working with Angelique Gillespie, students will use oil based paints on wood blocks to create a portrait from a photograph representing a person experiencing poverty or homelessness. We will begin by learning to draw faces, express emotions in our art through the use of colour and shadow, and move on to painting technique using the grain of the wood. Students will write poetry to accompany their artwork.

Start:Nov 1, 2006End:Dec 22, 2006

Task

Creating Public Service Announcements

In small groups, students will develop, design and create a public service announcement for television regarding homelessness in Calgary. Students will view and discuss example PSAs, understand and follow given guidelines for PSAs, contact local media to spread the word about their work, and work with CBE Media professionals to create these. Students will be asked to include digital photography, relevant audio or music tracks, video footage, and an effective message. Students will become familiar with the software Windows Movie Maker.

Start:Jan 9, 2007End:Feb 23, 2007

Task

THE BOOK PROJECT- If Calgary Were a Village

Still TBA.....but we are wanting to create an artifiact along the lines of "If Calgary were a village" where we will represent Calgary's stats in the context of 100 people rather than a million. This task involves collaboration between the Social Studies and Math inquiries going on simultaneously in our classroom.
-book publishers (Red Deer Publishing)
-deciding on what stats to put in, length, type of book...multimedia to accompany book
-illustrating
-getting publishing sponsorship
-advocating book to Imagine Calgary, City Council....etc.
-editing and publishing

Start:Nov 6, 2006End:Apr 6, 2007

The assessment we have used in this inquiry has taken many forms such as checklists, teacher observation, written work assessment, interviews, classroom participation, and rubrics.
The rubric included below was developed with our Grade 5 students and was accompanied by a discussion around What Mattered when we were assessing our Public Service Announcements. Students generated and defined each criteria at the developing stages before they completed work on their PSA and this rubric was used to assess their final products.

Public Service Announcement Rubric- Grade 5 2007

	5 Exemplary	4 Accomplished	3 Promising	2 Developing	1 Beginning
Message	-exceptionally strong -effective and motivating -very clear -audience can easily identify message -music is very well-suited -images and video clearly support the message	-very strong message -message makes the audience think -music is well suited -images and video mostly support the message	-message is clear -audience is aware that there is a message -images and video relate to the message in some way	-some hint at a message but it is not clearly stated -difficult to identify -images and video do not align with message -music is inappropriate	-audience is unable to identify any message -no relation between images and video -no text -false information -random order of PSA
Creativity	-excellent choice of many visuals -unique use of transitions -original idea -excellent choice of appropriate music -effective use of colour -shows extensive thought	-strong choice of visuals that shows thought -experimented with transitions somewhat -idea is done in a unique and original way -good choice of supporting music -shows that the group put thought and effort into their work	-good choice of visuals and order -idea is common but done a little differently -music is somewhat appropriate -attempts to play with transitions, colour and other effects	-idea is very similar to other groups' -music selection shows limited effort -transitions and effects are basic and common -shows minimal thought	-very basic -no transitions -not an original idea -no music or inappropriate music choice -disorganized -poor use of colour -lacking imagination
Conventions and Mechanics	-excellent audio quality -excellent use of video effects and transitions -demonstrates strong understanding of Movie Maker -fades in and out -100% correct spelling, punctuation and grammar -effective timing -alll elements in synch	-very good understanding of the program -uses some fade in and out -100% correct grammar, spelling and punctuation -timing is appropriate -effective use of transitions and video effects in several places	-good understanding of Movie Maker -some use of transitions and effects -video is trimmed but not perfectly -90% correct spelling, grammar and punctuation in all text	-timing is off -transitions are inappropriate -video is only somewhat trimmed -80% correct grammar, spelling and punctuation -all elements are not in synch	-no video effects -disorganized -video clips are left untrimmed -no transitions -incorrect spelling, grammar or punctuation -ineffective timing -inaudible
Teamwork	-everyone in the group is happy with the finished product -everyone can account for their contributions -everyone contributed equally -everyone feels that their ideas were heard -did not need any teacher support to solve problems	-group worked together on most days to respect each other -needed very minimal teacher support -everyone is very proud of their product -everyone feels that they contributed equally	-group cooperated and solved problems -needed some teacher support to work together -most group members contributed equal effort -group is proud of their finished product	-group members had difficulty sharing ideas -some group members feel that they did not contribute -some group members are proud of their work -needed substantial teacher support to work together.	-required daily teacher support to work together -one person made all decisions -group members did not contribute equally and cannot account for their input -had difficulty solving problems and cooperating