Curriculum for this Year - Changing the World

The grade 5/6 class at École Lansdowne set out this year with the large and imposing goal of changing the world. They succeeded in bettering not only the world, but also the community and themselves. This extraordinary group of young people wished to learn and educate others about the state of the world and what each and every individual could do to make our planet a kinder and safer place to live.

They started by making personal goals to change their own habits in order to reduce their footprint on mother Earth. Some of these goals included: shorter showers, walking or biking instead of getting a ride, being kinder to siblings, buying products with less packaging and many others. The students also each wrote letters to Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking that Canada help reduce the number of land mines in the world. The class held various fundraising events to raise money and awareness for several global causes.

Students in the class chose to join the school’s green team, running the recycling program, organizing community clean up projects, as well as putting together a week long celebration of the Earth, which included activities and presentations for all grades from nursery through grade 8.

The class taught three workshops at the University of Winnipeg to educate other students in grades 6-10 from various UNESCO schools across the country about the importance of living a sustainable lifestyle. The students had to work together, showing impressive maturity, teamwork and perseverance in deciding how to organize a workshop with 21 presenters.

Somehow amidst all of this activity the class also built a model of the world as a global village. Based on the story If the World Were a Village by David Smith the students built a representation of the world as it would be as a village of 100 people.

Each student researched one aspect of the village from the nationalities, ages and religions of the villagers, to how many are war affected, ill and have access to health care. This project brought a great deal of awareness to our class and to all of the visitors who explored the village at École Lansdowne’s Health Expo. Just for an added challenge, the students presented their information in both French and English. What a year! Can’t wait to see what they will do next.