Action Research Project

This afternoon I was able to make some more progress on my project.

I had spoke with Mary and Amanda Perron over the summer about a project they were working on at Blowing Rock Elementary dealing with immigration. They wanted to bring awareness to what we consider an immigrant. They were focusing on 5th graders because the social studies curriculum covers immigration. The goal was to help students research the different early immigrants to the US, create their own immigrant identity, and use it at an imaginary Ellis Island set up in the library. Based on how students answer pre-determined questions, they would either be detained, deported, or admitted into the country.

I thought this was a wonderful project that needed something comprehensive to pull all the pieces together to give teachers the potential to use it year after year. I am going to create a website that would house all the information needed for the project, so that any teacher, in any school or state, could use this themselves.

I am looking at the possibility of making the Ellis Island experience virtual so that students would work through the project on the computer in case a school couldn't create a physical Ellis Island at their school. This would work similar to a choose-your-own-adventure book where as the students picked certain qualifications they would either be detained, deported, or admitted.

Now I am looking at surveying 5th grade teachers, pre- and post-project to determine if they would use it or not. The 5th grade teacher at Blowing Rock Elementary is in love with the idea, but I need more feedback than that.