Tourism Projects: What is there to do out there?

Here's a fun way to end the semester with my middle school students. I give them a list of the top ten most populated cities in the world and let them pick one.

Their task is to pretend they are travel agents, trying to show us all the great things they can do in that city.  With only about a week to put something together, it's a frantic pace to find the best of the city -- hotels, restaurants, stuff for kids, and such -- and put together a presentation for us.  Not only do they need to create something technological, but there is a non-techie requirement too.  (That mostly took on the form of food, which is always a great idea when I'm in the mix.)

Here are three of the projects that rolled in for us.  I love how these web sites look -- almost like someone took a visual design class when I wasn't looking.

Delhi, India
Mumbai, India
Shanghai, China

Wanna Travel? Why not pick Sao Paulo or Shanghai?

Last week, I gave my middle school technology class a tourism project. I gave them a list of the top ten most populated cities in the world.  Each pair of students could pick one city from the list and had to put together a presentation to make a travel agent proud.

This was a quickie project. We did the same thing last year, and it lasted nearly two weeks.  This one had to be quick so we could jam it in before the end of the semester.  Here are the final products.

Sao Paulo, Brazil:

http://prezi.com/bd2gizn_zkwr/untitled-prezi/#share_embed

(Sorry, I'm having trouble getting the embed code on this.)

Shanghai, China:

Tourism Projects

Sometimes I steal ideas.  When I read this post about tourism in English speaking cities, I knew I had a winner I could modify for my seventh graders. 

I broke my class into six groups of three and let them choose one of the top ten most populated cities in the world to research.  However, instead of merely researching and reporting on the city, we added a twist.  Groups had to present this as a tourism sales pitch trying to convince us to visit this city.  

I also gave the students a voice in what the project would look like.  They gave me tons of input about what should be involved, how long it should be, and even the due date.  

Overall, I was very pleased with the final outcome.  They did a great job creating presentations and web sites, mashing in videos and pics, and even bringing in non-techie items (including yummy food!).  Well done!

You can see the presentations below.  (I think one of them is not shared publicly.  Sorry.)

• Delhi, India
• Manila, Philippines
• New York, USA
• Seoul, South Korea
• Shanghai, China
• Tokyo, Japan

One interesting note about this project. I always give kids a range of time a presentation ought to be. Normally, most students squeak in at the bare minimum time. Not this time. I had a number of groups go over the time range until I had to press the hurry button on the last couple groups.

In case you're wondering about the rest of the procedures, here are the instructions I gave the students along the way.

• Initial Instructions
• Day Two Instructions
• Questionnaire
• Due Date? (Oops! I forgot that in the above questions.)
• Final Instructions and Rubric (based on student input)