We have so much to share from 5th and 6th grade Humanities! Over the past few weeks, students have been continuing their daily workshop practice of geography and vocabulary skills. During our last round of badge tests, we had many students moving forward to their next level, and some even moved up two levels in geography! Their hard work during independent workshop time is clearly paying off!
During our daily activity time, we have been focusing on learning more about how poverty and hunger impact people all over the world. Recently, we read the book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. It tells the story of Kamkwamba's childhood growing up in a small village in Malawi. When his village and the surrounding areas are forced to suffer through a prolonged drought, young William can no longer attend school because his family can't afford it. Still, he comes up with the idea to build a windmill out of items from the local junkyard. With the power generated by the windmill, William is able to pump water from a well and create an irrigation system that moves water to the crops in his village's fields. After reading the story, we had long and thoughtful discussion about which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals were represented in it. We noticed clear connections to Goal #1 (No Poverty), Goal #2 (Zero Hunger), Goal #3 (Good Health & Well-Being), Goal #4 (Quality Education), and even Goal #5 (Gender Equality). It was inspiring to see someone so young take on such enormous challenges and overcome them using problem-solving skills and lots of perseverance! We enjoyed the book so much that we even watched the movie version on Netflix as well and learned even more about William's struggles and triumphs.
During our daily activity time, we have been focusing on learning more about how poverty and hunger impact people all over the world. Recently, we read the book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. It tells the story of Kamkwamba's childhood growing up in a small village in Malawi. When his village and the surrounding areas are forced to suffer through a prolonged drought, young William can no longer attend school because his family can't afford it. Still, he comes up with the idea to build a windmill out of items from the local junkyard. With the power generated by the windmill, William is able to pump water from a well and create an irrigation system that moves water to the crops in his village's fields. After reading the story, we had long and thoughtful discussion about which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals were represented in it. We noticed clear connections to Goal #1 (No Poverty), Goal #2 (Zero Hunger), Goal #3 (Good Health & Well-Being), Goal #4 (Quality Education), and even Goal #5 (Gender Equality). It was inspiring to see someone so young take on such enormous challenges and overcome them using problem-solving skills and lots of perseverance! We enjoyed the book so much that we even watched the movie version on Netflix as well and learned even more about William's struggles and triumphs.
This past week, eight student and Mr. Chadburn were able to attend the Cultivating Pathways to Sustainability event that was held for middle school students across the state at Shelburne Farms. The annual event is now in its fourth year and is designed to educate and support Vermont students as they work to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals in their local communities.
We started the morning being inspired by middle school students from Swift House at Williston Central School who attended the event last year and completed several projects in their community as a result, including classes that encouraged exercise for younger students and creating trails for walking or biking, among others.
We started the morning being inspired by middle school students from Swift House at Williston Central School who attended the event last year and completed several projects in their community as a result, including classes that encouraged exercise for younger students and creating trails for walking or biking, among others.
After spending some time thinking about what it takes to make change system-wide change and enjoying a tasty, healthy lunch, we spent the afternoon planning what we want to do to help end poverty and hunger in our Orleans community. The students brainstormed ideas about what is already happening to support these efforts in the Orleans area, what we might be able to do to improve those efforts, the community partners that we could ask to support us, and some ways to get the community excited about our work and engaged with us.
We were very fortunate to be joined by Mark Brennan from UNESCO throughout our work session, and we thank him for his input, guidance, and support. It was such a rewarding and productive afternoon, and we can't wait to get our work started! Stay tuned and check back often to see what we're working on and how you might be able to help!