What do we need to know in order to move forward?
In order to support students diving into these municipal issues, time must be spent helping them equip themselves for this challenge. Teachers will provide support to the students in terms of distinguishing fact from opinion as well as guide them towards keeping a growth mindset towards the issues.
Students will engage in lessons specifically designed to help them understand how governments are structured and how they function at the municipal level. The two main questions that will drive this part of the inquiry are:
- How are representatives chosen to form a local government (i.e., electoral process)?
- What are the responsibilities of local governments (i.e., bylaws, taxes, services)?
The nature of this project will require students to conduct deliberative research. Teachers will reinforce existing, and introduce new and effective strategies to ensure students are using the research process accurately and effectively.
Students will be instructed in how to implement many of the following skills and strategies:
Students will be instructed in how to implement many of the following skills and strategies:
- determine reliability of information filtering for point of view and bias
- formulate questions to be answered through the research process
- use graphs, tables, charts and Venn diagrams to interpret information
- draw and support conclusions based on information gathered to answer a research question
- include references in an organized manner as part of research
- formulate new questions as research progresses
- design and follow a plan, including a schedule, to be used during an inquiry process, and
make revisions to the plan, as necessary - access and retrieve appropriate information from the Internet by using a specific search path
or from given uniform resource locators (URLs) - organize information, using such tools as a database, spreadsheet or electronic webbing
- use a variety of technologies to organize and synthesize researched information
- reflect on and describe the processes involved in completing a project