Did you ever wonder where Ms. Abbot and Ms. Moody came up with the topics or ideas for projects? 

It started in September 2010 when we were starting out with two new groups of students in a new program. 

We asked the class to list questions they had about themselves, their community and the world.  We invited them to share with a partner and had them make a combined list of the questions they shared in common and considered must haves.  The partners formed a group of four and synthesized a list of top 10 questions combining and re-wording questions for their original lists.  The top 10 lists were shared with the class and the class sorted the topics and identified the themes they would like to investigate.

Our themes:  the economy & taxation; 2012 & apocalypse; world conflict & war; aliens; life changing events (children, marriage, death); fame & fortune; myths & fairy tales; schools (history, who invented & why); Technology (replacing books, flying cars, underwater living); the future; animal survival; world change; why do people enjoy sports; a changing Canada.

Then Ms. Moody and I took the themes and the prescribed learning outcome for middle school and started to look to connections.  We sat a brainstormed and found ourselves working with three major themes: Being the Change; Sustainability; Conflict and Oppression.

This year we are exploring sustainability.   We started by looking at some of the impact we are having on the environment and the earth.  Recycling, zero waste, trash free lunches, population and natural disasters were all topics that entered the discussion.  We have watched episodes of “Trashopolis” and continued to talk about what changes we could make to alter the path we are on.  During term one, every student researched an issue they were interested in.  From their research students work to present a proposal about how they would like to see change.  We had proposals on school compost, Green Team Club for the school, increasing recycling in our school, trash free lunches and cafeteria waste audits, school gardens, Bear Aware programs and walk to school programs. 

In term two we are taking a different approach to sustainability.  We have been exploring the sustainability of cultures and language through a literature study of the classics and a study of empires.  Students are currently working on their empires projects and are studying cultural sustainability through expansion specificially Rome & domination, the British Empire & the New World, and Space. 

We are also looking at the sustainability of food.  At the beginning of the new year, we watched “The Future of Food” and began the discussion about where our food comes from and how it gets to our tables.