Teaching Artifacts
Project: Planning to the People
As a ninth grade class, students learned about diverse model cities around the world and created a scorecard for an “ideal city.” In a group of five, students conducted field work and independent research to score San Diego in their assigned category. Then, students wrote and pitched a proposal to improve San Diego’s score. The strongest proposal for each category was submitted to the City of San Diego.
Unit: The 1619 Project Overview
As the conclusion to our Black History Month: A Mesa Mentor Project, ninth grade students learned about the history and current effects of systemic racism in the United States. This multi-modal unit centered around podcasts and writings from The New York Times' 1619 Project as well as videos about environmental racism, redlining, school funding, mass incarceration, and the new AP African American Studies course.
Lesson: Stargazing Across Time
This lesson served as a launch for our “Under These Stars” project. Before we went on our two-day camping trip to stargaze in Anza Borrego, ninth grade students learned about the historical context of stargazing. The structure of the lesson encouraged students to think sequentially and practice predictive analysis, as well as getting them out of their seats.