We are only two weeks in, and both groups have already begun to dig into some deep conversations!
5th/6th graders have started a unit on inequality. During guided workshop with Mr. Chadburn, students read and wrote about young people who have shared their ideas for fixing some of the problems in the world with members of the United Nations.
During activity time, students learned about the unequal distribution of wealth in our country using macaroni! This required some math. ("We're learning HuMATHities!" exlaimed one student.) First, students counted out 7,000 pieces of macaroni, which we bagged in groups of 100, to represent all of the wealth in the United States. Then we estimated, if we broke the US population into fifths from richest to poorest, how many bags (how much wealth) would each fifth get? After averaging our estimates, we decided on 35 bags for the richest fifth and 4 bags for the poorest fifth.
5th/6th graders have started a unit on inequality. During guided workshop with Mr. Chadburn, students read and wrote about young people who have shared their ideas for fixing some of the problems in the world with members of the United Nations.
During activity time, students learned about the unequal distribution of wealth in our country using macaroni! This required some math. ("We're learning HuMATHities!" exlaimed one student.) First, students counted out 7,000 pieces of macaroni, which we bagged in groups of 100, to represent all of the wealth in the United States. Then we estimated, if we broke the US population into fifths from richest to poorest, how many bags (how much wealth) would each fifth get? After averaging our estimates, we decided on 35 bags for the richest fifth and 4 bags for the poorest fifth.
Students were shocked and outraged to discover that in reality, the poorest 20% of Americans (over 60 million people) didn't even get one bag. They split just 7 pieces of macaroni. Meanwhile, the richest fifth (again, over 60 million people) split 62 bags! This led to conversations about inequality and the first five Global Goals we will learn about. |
5/6 finished up the week watching a short video about the lives of two young people in Indonesia while we jotted down any inequalities we noticed. Even though the two people in the video were the same age, same gender, and lived in the country, students found tons of examples of inequality! Mr. Chadburn and Miss G were blown away by the conversations students had about their observations, and we can't wait to continue next week!
Come back next week for an update on what 7/8 students have been up to!
Thanks to Rethinking Schools, World's Largest Lesson & micro:bit, and UNICEF for this week's lesson ideas and resources! We encourage you to click on their names to explore their work.