This
project was produced by Brett Moore as a Graduate Project for the University
of Illinois Urbana Champaign.
I currently teach 7th grade Geography at Rochester Junior High School in central Illinois. This will be my second year in the district, but will be my fourth year teaching overall.
I currently teach 7th grade Geography at Rochester Junior High School in central Illinois. This will be my second year in the district, but will be my fourth year teaching overall.
Email:
bjmoore2@uiuc.edu
Objective: The
objective of this project is for the students to discover how dependent
we are
on foreign countries. When
students buy products they do not look at where the product came from,
or how much the people who made it make, or who made the product.
I usually follow this project up with on on Child Labor in India.
This is just one way for children to understand the world around
them. The students
should
also be able to
analyze what areas of the world we get different types of products from.
Materials: Print off the participant instructions and one product worksheet for each students.
Procedure: Please follow the participant instructions below.
Materials: Print off the participant instructions and one product worksheet for each students.
Procedure: Please follow the participant instructions below.
| Product Worksheet | Blank World Map |
Individual School Results
- Due to the short summer session I was not able to find any participants that could participate during this time period. I did have two people respond who wanted to participate in the fall. One was a classroom teacher and the other was a technology coordinator from Russia who wanted to have several of her schools participate.
- I had several teachers search their houses and fill out the charts so I could have results to display. Instead of putting down their names I labeled what school they teach at to make it look more like my project will when completed. I also saved them time by allowing them to post their results in the form of a word document. This allowed them to not have to sign up for a Blog.
Virden Elementary School Results
Chatham Intermediate School Results
Quincy Junior High School Results
Rochester Middle School Results
Rochester Junior High School Results
Overall Project Results
- Pros
- As a group we found products from over 50 countries. With more time and more participants in different parts of the U.S. I think we would find significantly more countries. One addition I would like to add next time I do this would be to have each school complete a map showing where all their products came from. All they would have to do is save the blank map from above and edit it using Paint. I made one with this years results and I think it would give students a visual which would greatly increase their comprehension of the topic.
- The feedback that I did receive from my teacher participants was very positive. One of the participants said they were going to have their fifth grade math students participate and also have them make charts and graphs to display their results. Other participants commented on how it would be an easy project to implement in their classrooms.
- Cons
- It became apparent to me just how much stuff we get from China.
- This posses problems for the students because they may struggle with finding a lot of products from other countries besides China. The positive to this is they get to see how much we realy on the Chinese.
- The
ability to get outside participants. I hope this is because of
summer. The more particpants that I have the better the project
will be.
- The
project still needs a more interactive component. Because I
didn't have students participate I couldn't judge how the blog section
of the project will work.
Brett J. Moore
Last Update - July 2007