Grade 8 students learn about social movements during IB-related project

With protests making headlines during the past year, some teachers at Jordan-Elbridge Middle School have used the topic as an opportunity to create an International Baccalaureate (IB) project.

About 70 grade 8 students have been working on a civil rights protest project where they pick a topic related to protesting (such as Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 or Jackie Robinson integrating into Major League Baseball in 1947) and present how these moments of change were spurred on by citizens.

The goal of the project is for students to educate their peers on a topic, and make connections between then and now.The students – who are enrolled in the language and literature and individuals and societies courses – were charged with creating a product of his/her choice such as a written report, poster, PowerPoint presentation or video.
 
“This project is research-based using skills learned in English language arts and social studies. Most kids researched a topic in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 60's, and compared it to what happened in 2020,” said teacher Doug Hickman.

“The major takeaway is that we want students to understand the difference between protesting and rioting, and that there have been protest movements that were for peaceful ways of making change. We wanted them to differentiate between the protest movements where people acted peacefully in the past, and those in the present day that deteriorated into chaos.”

Alexander Kunz chose the march in Selma Alabama for his project and utilized a slideshow. He said it was great to learn about the event as well as teach others.

“I learned a lot about it and learned that if something is important enough, people will go through a lot of pain to do it,” he said.