1. What is our purpose?
Grade:
5
Age Group:
10-11 years
To inquire into the following: Where we are in Place and Time
School:
Western Academy of Beijing
School Code:
002162
Title:
Where we are in Place and Time
Teachers:
T. Favilli, , J. Bindon, S. Ballard, R. Moran, L. Ittner, R. Korfage, M. Roosen
Date:
November 26, 2012 - February 1, 2013
Transdisciplinary theme:
An inquiry into orientation in place and time; personal histories; homes and journeys; the discoveries, explorations
and migrations of humankind; the relationships between and the interconnectedness of individuals and civilizations,
from local and global perspectives.
Proposed duration: 42 periods or
Central Idea: Past civilizations shape present day systems and technologies.
A variety of past experiences combined to shape present systems and technologies.
28 hours
Over number of weeks:
7
2. What do we want to learn?
What are the key concepts to be emphasised within the inquiry?
Causation, Connection, Reflection
Summative assessment task(s): What are the possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of the
central idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?
Tracing System/Technology through time- Students research a current system or technology (ie. writing,
communication, calendars, etc.) and trace it through time. Focusing on how past experiences effect the present. 4-5
periods
WAB BMs:
LAA.WR.5.8 8. locate, organize, synthesize and present written information obtained from a variety of sources.
HUM.CC.5.2 2. explore which aspects of past civilizations have had the most impact on the present day, using
evidence from a variety of sources.
HUM.GU.5.5 5. describe the impact of advances in technology over time, on individuals, society and the environment.
HUM.EE.5.1 1. analyze information about past technological advances and societal systems.
HUM.CC.5.1 1. suggest societal and technological changes that may take place in the future.
HUM.GU.5.4 4. predict future events by analyzing reasons for events in the past and present.
Student Developed Check List:
 Pictures of the stages it went through
 Describe with words how it changed
 Dates of invention
 Who invented, discovered, first used, successfully designed, etc.
 Where it originated
 What is it like today
 Ideas of what it MIGHT be like in the future
 Why it is important
 How it has changed civilizations, communities, life, people, the world etc.
 How can it help you/ Where we would be without it
HERE is a link to the assignment description used in 2012-2013.
No rubric is currently used.
Collect and add exemplars.
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
Related Concepts:
Innovation, Progress, Technology.
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?
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Aspects of past civilizations that have survived.
Reasons these systems and technologies developed.
Why modern societies continue to use adaptations of these systems and technologies.
Implications for the future.
What learning outcomes, disciplinary skills and conceptual understandings will support the inquiry?
See Appendix* for BM
*Needs organizing
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?
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What is a civilization?
How can we describe the characteristics of civilizations?
What evidence is there of past civilizations?
What are some connections between the past and the present?
How would our lives be different without knowledge from the past?
3. How might we know what we have learned?
4. How best might we learn?
This column should be used in conjunction with “How best might we learn?” What are the possible ways of assessing
students’ prior knowledge and skills? What evidence will we look for?
What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to encourage the students to engage
with the inquiries and address the driving questions?
KWL Chart or Brain Storm: Students will think about and share what they already know, what they want to know,
and later will share what they learned about in the unit. Civilization, Inventions, Change Over Time might be good key
words to begin these discussions.
*Collect and add exemplars for all assignments for new teachers to reference
Weslandia read aloud and discussion: Weslandia is a short picture book about a boy who creates his own
civilization in his backyard. He developed different elements of civilization to make it run successfully. The book can
be read aloud and analyzed as a class to identify characteristics of civilizations and cultures. Some examples of
characteristics that could be identified while reading this book are: language, food, employment, entertainment,
leadership and government, laws, currency, religion, etc. Click HERE to access lessons and ideas on Weslandia
activities.
Creating a Class Civilization: After identifying characteristics of a civilization students can create their own class
civilization. Students can work together in small groups on one of the characteristics of a civilization in order to
create a fifth grade utopia and then presented to the group. If time and interest allow the class could participate in
Class Civilization Day.
Researching Skills in the Library: Students attend a session with the librarian, John Byrne, to learn how to search
on the internet. Students learn how to conduct quality searches by using appropriate searching key words to
narrow the results. They learn how to identify a reliable website on their searches. 2-3 periods
Ancient Civilization Research for Historical Narrative: Students choose an ancient civilization of their interest
and conduct research. They fill in a graphic organizer that identifies characteristics of a civilization. While reading
and recording notes have students focus on recording information as bullet points and in their own words. Click
HERE for the graphic organizer. 3-6 periods
Reading examples of historical narratives and identifying text features and elements: At the same time that
students are conducting research about an ancient civilization they should be getting exposure to historical
narrative texts. There are a series of three short texts and accompanying lessons that help students to identify
elements of historical narratives. Click HERE for these lessons. 5-6 periods
Writing of Historical Narrative: Upon completion of research and exposure to historical narratives students use
their research to write a historical narrative during the time of the civilization that they researched. They are
guided through the writing process with specific lessons for pre-writing, beginning the story, using transitions,
ending the story, revising, and editing. All these writing lessons can be found HERE. In addition, support services
will conduct speech and dialogue, sentence structure, and verb tense mini-lessons in small groups. 6-8 periods
Simple Machines: Students are exposed to six simple machines (lever, wheel and axel, pulley, screw, inclined
plane, and wedge) with THIS power point. Students are then broken into groups and asked to research and be
prepared to share on how the simple machine was used in the past, what its purpose is, and how it is used today.
Click HERE for more details about the lesson. 2-3 periods
Engineering Connections: There are two National Geographic videos (40-50 minutes each) about Wembley
Stadium and the Sydney Opera House that share examples of how some simple machines and everyday objects
inspire the engineering wonders of these neat buildings. Students watch these videos as a whole class pausing often
to take notes in the graphic organizers and discuss what the original idea was and how it changed over time or was
used in a different way. This is used as a transition to our summative assessment where the students trace an
artifact through time. 4-5 periods
Tracing a system or technology from past to present: Summative Assessment see Section 1
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines of inquiry? What evidence will we
look for?
What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the development of the
attributes of the learner profile?
Thinking skills- Engineering connections and tracing a system or technology through time project
Communication Skills- historical narrative writing, simple machines keynote, choice in how students want to
communicate their tracing a system or technology through time project
Research Skills- Using destiny in the library, researching an ancient civilization, and tracing a system or
technology through time project
Attributes of Learner Profile: Knowledgeable and Thinkers
Integration with Single Subjects:
Art- Print making, shop tools, wood block printing tools, and carving knives. Students will contrast ancient wood
block and current print making technologies.
Chinese- Advanced-4 innovations in Chinese history and adaptations of them that we are still using today.
Chinese- Intermediate- Working around the world and a connection with where the students lives.
Chinese- Connection to Chinese New Year
ELL- scaffolding and front loading for the written work and exposure to the vocabulary and characteristics of a
civilization. Many connections with the historical narrative
PE- (Health related fitness and cricket) Olympic games focus on how past civilizations have contributed. Perhaps
tracing the history of sports.
IT- Search skills. Research skills. Use destiny and library sites to find kid friendly information.
Counseling- connecting to group work and communication skills which will help students prepare for exhibition.
Fun thinking skills and team building activity.
Dutch- Traces of Roman civilization left in The Netherlands. They'll learn about Roman civilization. At the end
students will design their own museum catalog.
Performing Arts- Instrument unit for 2 weeks where students first examine current instruments, then trace the
history and development of an instrument.
5. What resources need to be gathered?
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available?
Non-fiction Books: Ask the library to prepare non-fiction books on ancient civilizations for research.
Historical Narrative Novels and Short Stories: Ask the library to prepare novels (*Ask Jan for a list of titles she used this year and identify if more need to be ordered to fit the needs of all 5 homerooms) to be used for literacy book groups
and shorter picture books that can be used for quicker examples.
Librarian: Book librarian, John Byrne, to lead researching skills lessons.
Technology: Access to Grade 5 Resources for more detailed information on individual lessons and materials.
How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to facilitate the inquiry?
6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?
7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?
Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students’ understanding of the central idea. The
reflections of all teachers involved in the planning and teaching of the inquiry should be included.
*Perhaps Angela can lead us through this part of the reflection?
Leah’s Reflection-
Causation
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to: develop an understanding of the concepts identified in “What do we want to learn?”
Connection
This has been a really interesting unit. I can see that the students enjoyed learning about ancient civilizations and
conducting research. As a new teacher I found it challenging to organize the learning activities. It seems that next
year we might want to make a clear timeline before beginning the unit. I am glad that we choose not to do the
compare and contrast assignments as it was too much writing for one unit, however, I wish we had made that choice
earlier on. I would also like to have a list of historical narrative books to use for reading groups and picture books
for whole class literacy lessons. It might also be cool to turn the historical narrative into an actual book, maybe a
picture book to read with their little buddy in order to make it a more meaningful assignment for them. I like the
©
International
Baccalaureate Organization
2007the students through the writing process of the historical narrative. I hope that we
writing
mini-lessons
that guided
can make this clear writing process for future assignments as well. Another aspect of the unit that I enjoyed was the
Reflection
Related Concepts: Innovation, Progress, Technology.
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to: demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills?
(Thinking & Research look at pg. 29 Making PYP Happen to reflect on specifics of the concepts and transdiscplinary skills.)
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to: develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
In each case, explain your selection.
Use Learning Experiences Page and Resources
engineering connections. I found that they tied in quiet well with the lines of inquiry.
Sue’s ReflectionI dropped the compare contrast and did it in the last week, but not using the historical context. Using the research of
the ancient civilization for the historical narrative worked well and the stories were the best in 3 years. I agree the
online lessons worked well. Still like the beginning of this unit – Westlandia, our classroom culture. Engineering
connections tiesin great. I think the problem with this unit is that there is the ancient civ side and the technology
and art side. Too diverse which gave us the problem with reporting. Couldn’t report in the first half because really
the lines were divided and hadn’t gotten to the second half of them. It might be on the PoI this year which could
change the focus.
Jan’s reflection
I agree with Sue re the focus being too wide and found the unit quite disjointed this time round. Being broken up by
the Winter Holiday did not help either. The lines of inquiry relate to aspects of society, specifically technology and
how these have changed /are still changing. Kids love history and this is the only time we get close in Grade 5 which
is a shame. It would be the perfect unit to engage more with China – we could focus on Ancient China – get deeper
into one civilisation than have kids dabble in many. Weslandia worked well again and my class loved creating our
own culture. Engineering Connections was good – my class found the Sydney Opera House video more engaging and
accessible than the Wembley Studio one. They are enjoying tracing the evolution of a piece of technology of their
choice. In retrospect I would have started this way earlier in order to do it justice. I agree with Leah, we need to
have a suggested timeline in place before we start the unit. I know we tried to find an excursion venue for this unit –
can we ask Dennis to keep looking? I think at least one of the G5 staff should check out a suggested venue – time
release for this?? If we want to really immerse the kids in a past culture, can we find any movies / videos?
Meeting Reflection Ideas:
 Timelines- Use them and add to it. Perhaps add to one in the hall
 Start with present technology and trace it back
 Historical Narrative- taught and assessed
 Tracing Technology- not a text type
 Took compare and contrast
 Perhaps we need to get rid of all of our ancient civilizations connections because it doesn’t actually match
with the central idea OR do we need to change the lines of inquiry.
 Do we want to change their research to be based on their system and technology?
 Can we change historical narrative to a different unit or just plain narrative? It doesn’t really fit anymore.
 Simple Machine in experiments…. We don’t do it shouldn’t be in this unit
 Do report writing with this unit instead of historical narrative.
 More independent writing time?
 HUM.KP.5.2 2. reflect on the influence of the arts and technology throughout history in the representation of
culture.
 SCI.PS6.5.3 3. perform experiments with simple machines to demonstrate the relationship between forces
and distance.
 What can we show that has changed through time.
 Keep on going with engineering connections… real life examples. Sydney Opera House is a good one to use.
 Perhaps continue with labs
 Historical Narratives as reading groups- we may need to order more books to have all classes and all reading
levels have texts.
 Perhaps change order of units because this matches so well with the Great Wall Camp.
 History? Where does this fit?
 Make the technology/systems project and make that the focus of the entire unit.
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning?
Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and questions and highlight any that were incorporated into the teaching
and learning.
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a more accurate picture of each
student’s understanding of the central idea.
We should collaborate and have a clear idea with exemplars of what we expect students to do. We should have a
rubric to use to assess the students. We should make agreements on what demonstrates highly proficient,
proficient, developing, and emerging with each BM on the assessment.
We felt that it was segmented in what we did and that it didn’t really tie to the lines of inquiry. Spend longer in the
technology project past, present and future. Start with that project next year because all of the lines of inquiry. We
might need to just do away with the civilization bit. However, it is also our “Where we are in place and time” this is
the only history unit. Include timeline. Events could be technology but not as strong of a connection as something
line war. There was been a progression away from “social studies and history” because of the benchmarks and it is
not anywhere else throughout the year.
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and the transdisciplinary
theme?
9. Teacher notes
Box 7, 8 and 9 move and cover each other while typing.
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
At this point teachers should go back to box 2 “What do we want to learn?” and highlight the teacher
questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the inquiries.