Building Bridges & iMovie

Invitation
What kind of features are central to all residential communities?  Where to children play?  Where is the library and police station relative to your school?  What shapes are buildings and bridges?  How many triangles do you pass on your way to school? Why are parking lots usually rectangles?  Each of these questions help us to explore details of your neighborhood and aide in constructing an overall picture or map of your community.  Use this activity as a kind of scavenger hunt for geometric figures as you create a map of your community.

Unit details
Subject: Science &  Mathematics
Learning levels: Primary
Author:  Randy Yerrick and Garrett Corduan

Detailed standards:
This unit was designed to address the following CA standards:
 

1.  Students compare and contrast the locations of people, places, and environments and describe the human and physical characteristics of places by constructing maps and models of neighborhoods, incorporating such structures as police and fire stations, airports, banks, hospitals, supermarkets, harbors, schools, homes, places of worship, and transportation lines.
2.  Students compare and contrast the absolute and relative locations of people and places and describe the physical and human characteristics of places by… comparing the information from a three-dimensional model to a picture of the same location…and using numerical data in describing and comparing objects, events and measurements.
3. Students learn the story of their home state, unique in American history in terms of its vast and varied geography, its many waves of immigration beginning with pre-Columbian societies, its continuous diversity, economic energy, and rapid growth. In addition to the specific treatment of milestones in California history, students examine the state in the context of the rest of the nation, with an emphasis on the U.S. Constitution and the relationship between state and federal government.
4. Students demonstrate an understanding of the physical and human geographic features that define places and regions in California by using maps, charts, pictures (and iMovies) to describe how communities in California vary in land use, architecture, services, and transportation
5. Students identify common geometric objects in their environment and describe their features…identify and describe common geometric objects (e.g., circle, triangle, square, rectangle, cube, sphere, cone)…and compare familiar plane and solid objects by common attributes (e.g., position, shape, size, roundness, number of corners)

Tasks
Part #1:  Collecting information and map making
Students are each assigned the responsibility of a zone of the community to collect artifacts, pictures, and create a representation.  Hopefully, the students' homes are dispersed wide enough to map most of the local area.  Each student's area can be marked on a grid posted on a large bulletin board or sheet of paper that will eventually contain all students' contributions. (This subdivision of the community is made easier if streets in the local area run north-south and east-west).  Students are instructed to collect artifacts and keep a journal of their respective area noting kinds of buildings and structures (e.g.: bridges) along their way.  While a digital camera or video camera is the easiest to import into the community iMovie, a logistically simplified approach is to purchase a dozen disposable cameras and rotate them among the students until each has collected their photos.  The teacher can develop photos (sometimes at the expense of a donor pharmacy in exchange for the free advertising) and distribute them to the students who collected them.
Using the large bulletin board artifacts are then posted from the student contributions.  Appleworks can also be used to draw the community as it can print large documents in page by page sections that can be posted on the wall in the grid order.  The teacher will need to facilitate the representation of the community as a whole keeping in mind:

• - The inclusion of important community sites like the police station, fire department, hospital, and library.
• - The keeping of scale of streets, building, and relative distances.
• - The main landmarks recognizable to all students like the school, main roads, and perhaps even  north markers.

Part #2: Identifying polygons
Using the photos and drawings, children should begin to identify common shapes in the community.  These shapes can be used to create a legend if there are too many photos to include all structures.  For example, green triangles can represent trees while small red squares can represent houses because of their shape.  The teacher should be keen to point out differences in rectangles from squares as well as identifying shapes within shapes.  Many bridges have triangles within squares for additional support and noting this detail of substructures will be important in the related unit of practice.

Part #3: Identifying distributions of polygons and other community attributes
Once the map is completed and students have had at least one day to look specifically for shapes the artifacts can be used to conduct a rough survey of the distribution of shapes.  This can be done in many ways.   The simplest way is simply to circle on the map the places where the most triangles are found and where the most squares, etc.  Another way however is to actually count all the squares, triangles, circles, and rectangles in a designated area and create a histogram that represents that area.  On the map these histograms can be posted to show the places where triangles or other shapes are most prevalent.   Distributions of other kinds can be represented on this map in subsequent lessons of more vital information.  For example, "Where is the wildlife in our community and how can we protect it?"

Part #4: "Meet my community" iMovie
The students should all be able to contribute to a "Meet my community" video production using video footage, scanned photos and drawings, as well as clips from any visitors who came to talk with the class.  This movie could be done in separate sections over the course of the week as the map is being developed or as a culminating event to be shown to the school population or edited and posted on the school website.

Interactions
This activity is important for developing closer relationships within the classroom community as well as the local community.   Building collaboration through teamwork is important but teamwork can be facilitated through activities that all can be
successful in.   A large task like mapping an entire community is a task that should be addressed early in the year for a number of reasons.  These include: 1) familiarizing new-comers and novices to common aspects of the community, 2) emphasizing where to go for help in emergencies, and 3) giving the teacher added insight of the student and their position within the community as well as some personal information.

In addition to building the classroom community, students should understand that the buildings and civic structures that their map and iMovie depict are built be specific people with supervision by specific institutions.  Students can become familiar with local builders, architects, and city council members as well a procedures for designing and building structures in the community.  Safety is another concern that is enforced by officials and speakers can visit the class to take part in the judging or other activities.  Every opportunity should be made during this time to invite speakers from the outside to participate in filming the iMovie or simply sharing their role in the community.

One final note, some social studies lessons are natural extensions of this mapping activity.  For example, in urban areas, houses will be placed very close together on the map and wildlife (or green habitat) will be minimal.  In such a case, it may be useful to talk about violence and stress as a natural animal and human response.  When animals' territories are interfered with, they become quite defensive in many observable ways (e.g.: stomping feet, hissing, showing their teeth, becoming loud).  Why shouldn't we expect people to have the same response?
 

Assessment
Assessment for the map and iMovie should be performed on the basis of specific contributions to the whole.  Descriptions, drawings, and photos are part of the students' fulfillment of the larger task but invitations to speakers and movie editing can also count towards the students' completion of their responsibilities.  Students should share their completed work with members of the community outside their classroom like the principal or civic figures.

Tools
iMovie, digital video camera, computer, Appleworks