How can one person or event create change in the world?
This project began with a local young author, Alliana Rempel, reading her book ONE (any similar book could be used as a launch). The story was used to inspire learners to think about why people make a difference and how they can effect change. This was followed up with a visit to an exhibition on Anne Frank that detailed her life and story and how her diary is still being read to this day.
In the first phase of this project, the discovery phase, the learners collaboratively worked through different learning centres (text, video, online, websites) and visited the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. They learned about different Canadian/global issues, changemakers, and events that effected positive change in the world. When at the museum, they also collaborated, explored, and pulled out the characteristics and design elements that made good museum exhibits.
Following this, the learners began the research phase, where they chose a local, national, or global changemaker and learned about this individual’s life, challenges, and how they created change. Using this information, the teams of learners began designing an exhibit collaboratively to represent their changemaker. Through the process, they continued to build on each other’s ideas to develop a plan that was unique to their exhibit.
In the creating phase, learners used art and design skills, incorporating aesthetics, information, interactivity, and theatre in the design of their exhibit. Working together through this phase exercised their collaborative skills as they each took on their own roles and worked through challenges, differences, and setbacks.
In the end, the exhibits together helped to create their very own Museum of Caring that was hosted all around the school. Learners also became part of the exhibit themselves, either by becoming the person they had researched or becoming a character who shared information. Their exhibit also had to stand alone so that if someone visited the exhibit and the learners were not there, the visitor could still learn about the changemaker or event.
When all the exhibit installations were complete, learners opened their Museum of Caring to the school community, including learners, staff, families, and community members, so they too could visit and learn about these influential people and events that effected change in our world!
The final phase of this project had the learners consider how they too could effect change. Some learners took on small projects, such as random acts of kindness, while others engaged in bigger initiatives such as creating fundraising or clothing drives for charities.
Rempel, Alliana. ONE. FriesenPress, 2018.
