Mini IDU: Human Impact on the Environment

Last year my Grade 6s did a big IDU between Design, Language and Literature and Language Acquisition. We postponed starting this, as we originally thought we would just have a few weeks off of school. Now that we know we won't be back for a while, we are doing a mini-version. For this, I will only give them a design Criterion C and D grade, (they will still do parts of A and B, such as analysing existing products, defining their problem and planning, but this will not be graded). We will of courses use all the IDU criteria. They will also be making paper dioramas for their final products too!

Something which I really like about this unit, is that the work they do will look very different depending on what language class they are in - for example, one Lang&Lit teacher will have her students to an op-ed piece, where as an EAL teacher will have her students do short fables and headline activities! As long as the written piece is a call to action, it fits!

So far they have learnt about the IDU, done a Parley online activity, after watching a Greta Thunberg  speech and one of my three classes as analysed some existing videos which raise awareness of human impact on the environment. The other two grade 6 classes will do this tomorrow. The next step is I am going to get them to look at the type of diorama they want to make, and I will give them 20 minutes to make a really rough one (just so they can figure out how everything will be stuck together!)

• Here is the mini presentation!
• Here is a Pinterest board with more inspiration!
• Here is a video showing how to make a very quick diorama!