Sparking empathy
One teacher's Empatico Experience
Empathy starts with baby sharks and flossing. I know that probably seems like a strange statement, but I promise it is true. This school year, I wanted to find innovative ways to integrate social studies into our classroom. Our year long project’s essential question is: How does global collaboration develop empathy, spread kindness, and enhance learning? Learners participate in a variety of experiences each month to connect them with experts and classrooms around the globe. Our team has a goal to spread kindness in the community, state, nation, and world through one good deed. In October, learners donated Halloween candy to create care packages for service members serving overseas. In December, we created Caitlin’s Smiles bags for children at a local hospital. In February, we organized announcements, posters, and commercials to promote donations to our district’s Panther Pantry. This spring, we hope to create a rain garden as a PBL experience. Each month we find ways to help make our world a better place through acts of kindness. I am passionate about providing project based learning opportunities that develop the 21st century skills necessary to be successful in today's world. Collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and communication are valuable skills that enhance learning.
Our classroom has participated in Mystery Skype with people in France, Greece, India, Canada and more to enhance geography skills. Learners developed their own 5 Clue Challenges about geographic places in Pennsylvania using Green Screen Technology and explored Pennsylvania landmarks with Nearpod VR. We participated with our vertical team in the Global Read Aloud project by reading Amal Unbound and having weekly discussions and literature circle activities, Skyped with other classes reading the book, participated in a postcard exchange, learned about Pakistan via Skype and virtual reality tours, hosted a tea, and connected with the author, Aisha Saeed. We have participated in International Dot Day via FlipGrid, Skypeathon, World Read Aloud Day,and a Global Math competition with Living Maths. As part of Hour of Code, we engaged with Microsoft Code Creators from Minecraft and Pixar, and had a webinar with Josh Funk, Author of How to Code a Sandcastle. We have taken virtual field trips to the World War II Museum in New Orleans to learn about inventions. Streamable Learning has hosted interactive webinars about geology, fossils, and rocks at The Museum of the Rockies, The Cranbrook Institute of Science, and The Royal Tyrell Paleontology Museum. We also visited the Roper Science Center to learn about spies during the American Revolution. We even learned how the NBA uses STEM through a Discovery Education webinar. Through Google Earth Voyager and Google Expeditions learners took guided tours to learn how wind becomes electricity. One of the most powerful experiences that I am honored to be a part of this year is Empatico. I was selected to be an Empatico Connector and participate in a fellowship. Our partner class in Honduras will be doing at least 6 interactive lessons together. We choose a common lesson from their website designed for Grades 1-5. The students are so excited when they find out how much we have in common with people around the world. During our first session, we ended with a spontaneous Baby Shark dance party. It was very memorable! You could feel the excitement when they realized that a class 1, 886 miles away also played Fortnite and knew about flossing. I am looking forward to forming a close relationship with our partners and sparking empathy in others.
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