Creation Presentations

This was a quick and fun project I did with my sixth graders.  They were given 10 minutes to explore the Hubble Telescope gallery and enjoy the beauty of space.  After the 10 minutes, they split themselves into groups to make a presentation using five great pictures and one or two Bible verses about the awesome creative powers of God.  I forbade them to use PowerPoint, and in the future I'll most likely direct them from Keynote as well.

The presentations below were originally done as Keynotes, but I converted them to PDFs through Google Drive to make sharing online easier. Here are some of the best!

• Ashley, Caroline, and Amanda
• Jake, Waite, and Dom
• Lilli, Anna, and Ellie

Even if you're not a creationist, we can all agree that the stars are gorgeous when viewed through Hubble. 

You can view the original instructions here. 

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)