Social Studies and the Young Learner March/April 2020
Social Studies and the Young Learner March/April 2020
Volume:32
Num:4
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Editor's Notes March/April 2020
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Teaching World Communities as Cultural Translation: A Third Grade Unit of Study
This article bridges scholarship in global education with ele- mentary classroom teaching by presenting a series of lessons that challenge the idea of national culture as fixed and stable.
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Using Virtual Reality (VR) to Enhance C3 Framework Inquiry
In this article, we discuss how virtual reality (VR) can be used to provide learning experiences across time and space. After a brief introduction to VR technology, we discuss how VR can be used as a part of College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) inquiry in your elementary classroom, including management, materials, instructional considerations, and lesson examples.
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Women are as Important as Men: Third Graders Investigate Diverse Women in U.S. History
Young children’s self-identification and self-identity are essentially a set of conscious and unconscious beliefs built from experiences.2 Students’ self-image, and their understanding of society, can change when they research how women contributed to our nation and to our daily lives. Such lessons can render these historical figures accessible and relevant.
We created a lesson based on inquiry activities as described in the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards, introducing students to a compelling question: “Why do we celebrate Women’s History Month?”
The lesson described featured women who are mostly unknown and understudied. We hope it is part of a trend to enrich K-6 social studies and to bring inquiry methods into our teaching.
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Breaking the Bronze Ceiling: Investigating a Monumental Inequality
<p>We live in a time when the question of who is (or is not) depicted in public monuments is a topic of heated discussions across the nation. For example, the removal of Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, resulted in a violent protest in 2017. Such debates concerning the display and preservation of Civil War monuments center around concerns that Confederate monuments romanticize the pro-slavery South and fail to acknowledge the racial oppression that fueled the Civil War. But issues about Civil War monuments are part of a larger discussion about the effect of monuments in public spaces. The presence of these monuments, and what they symbolize to different groups of people in the communities in which they are located, has highlighted the important role that public art can have in our culture.</p><p>In this article, the authors describe a lesson that engages students in considering the bronze ceiling in relation to the presence and absence of women from public art.</p>
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Citizen Toddler: Spreading the Message about Caring for Our Planet
The article highlights how a class of toddlers spread their message about composting and repacking food. This curriculum emerged out of the students' interests, and it connected students' classroom experiences to their homes and communities, fostering a sense of power and agency in some of our youngest neighbors.
