by Kayla
The past few weeks the third graders have been studying Native Americans. As their culminating project for this unit, they were each assigned a different tribe from different regions (they also had the option to request a partner). They were then asked to make ibooks based of the information they collected. The students had to first fill out a packet with all of the information they collected from their research and then reformat it for the ibooks.
Students went into great depth on their tribes, researching every detail about them such as what they used for weapons, gear, transportation, clothing, their belief system, if they were involved in conflicts, shelter, and language. Students also learned about the citation aspect of researching, making sure that they did not plagiarize; instead paraphrasing the information. They started out by reading books and trying to find the most they could about their tribe and if they were missing anything, began researching online.
It is the first time that the students had done a research project in so much depth. They had done other projects that required research, but not to this extent. Learning about Native Americans is a very beneficial subject to be studying at such a young age, as well as research and citation techniques as they will use these skills for the rest of their life.
