Seeking Partners: iEARN Projects and Activities

Are you facilitating an iEARN project? Do you have an idea for a new iEARN project? The 2014-2015 iEARN Project Book will be published in early September 2014 and we would love to include all new and activeiEARN projects! If you are facilitating a currently active iEARN project, please submit an updated iEARN Project Template. If you have an idea for a new iEARN project, please first post your project idea in the Teachers Forum or, for students, the Youth Forum. You can also share your project in the iEARN News Flash e-newsletter by sending a brief description of your idea to newsflash@iearn.org. If you find partners who are interested in collaborating with you and your students, please fill out an iEARN Project Template.
The submission deadline for the 2014-2015 iEARN Project Book is Friday, August 1, 2014. The book will be published in early September.

New “Global Billy Cart Grant Prix Design and Engineering/Technology” Project Idea

A class in Australia is seeking partners to join them in a design and engineering / technology inquiry unit called ‘Billy Cart Grand Prix’.  It will involve designing a billy cart, and creating a billy cart that a student can drive/ride on a course.  Students will be testing, re-evaluating, redesigning and improving their designs and retesting.  The technology process combines all contemporary learning skills including design, planning, critical thinking, problem solving, analysing, testing, evaluating, collaboration and creativity.  The end of the unit will involve a a Billy Cart Grand Prix or some sort of timed race along a predetermined course.  Interested?  Read more and post your interest in the Billy Cart Grand Prix topic on the iEARN Teachers Forum.

New “Child Rights and Responsibilities” Project Idea

Participants will study Child Rights and Responsibilities and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.  Students will be asked to identify their wants and needs (using UNICEF resources available online) and learn that their needs are their Rights and that Rights come with responsibilities.  Collaborative activities 1: Children create a diary of a day in their life and identify any Rights they have accessed (e.g. clean water, nutritious food, play, the right to practice their religion) and any responsibilities they have shown. Children share their diaries with children at partner schools and ask / answer questions.  2: Children take photos to illustrate that Right and add captions. Children share photos with children at partner schools and ask / answer questions.  3. Children share their ideas of what can be done to ensure that ALL children have access to these Rights and any actions taken.  Partner schools may participate in one, two or three collaborative activities.  This project is designed for ages 5-11 and would start end of October 2014 and end at end of June 2015.  Interested?  Login and respond to the Child Rights and Responsibilities topic on the iEARN Teachers Forum.

New “Weather Around the World” Project Idea

Each class that participates in the project will keep a pictorial weather chart showing the weather at a particular time each day, e.g. sun, rain, cloud, snow and shares it with partner schools. Children compare and contrast the weather in different parts of the world.  Optional extra activities – some ideas. Other ideas welcome.  Mathematics – children may use the weather charts to make block graphs of e.g. number of sunny, rainy, cloudy days each month.  Art – children may create artwork showing different types of weather.  Designed for students ages 5-11.  Project to start in September 2014 and end in June 2015 (or could continue if there is interest in keeping a weather chart for a whole year).  Interested?  Login and respond to the Weather Around the World topic on the iEARN Teachers Forum.

New “I Teach, You Teach” Project Idea

This project is about students sharing their skills and learning from one another. We will begin by getting students to share through videos, blogs or photos what they are skilled at, be it art, football, baking, sewing, coding, etc.  Partners will leave comments and then select which of these they would like to improve in. We then as classes decide what we want to learn from each other. Over a term, we will swap improvement videos tutorials based on those areas to each other so that we can help each other get better at that specific skill.  Interested?  Login and respond to the I Teach, You Teach topic on the iEARN Teachers Forum.

New “Digital Imaging and Photography Gallery 2014-2015” Project Idea

Inviting schools around the world to collaborate to produce a Digital Imaging and Photography Gallery. The object is for student to use Photoshop to create image manipulations and showcase them. As part of this project, students will also post their photography images. To enhance the project, students can tutors each other via Skype so they can share their learning journeys and teach each other. Students can also produce a Photoshop tutorial so that other students can follow it. Interested? Login and respond to the Digital Imaging and Photography Gallery 2014-2015 topic on the iEARN Teachers Forum.

Local History Project

A collaborative project in which students research the history of their communities and share their findings with their global peers. Possible classroom activities include writing essays and making power point presentations and sharing them on the project forum; discussions on the project forum to learn more about the local history issues of project partners; sharing photos and art representing cultural diversity of project participants, traditions, country cuisine and folklore; and live sessions via Skype or Blackboard Collaborate. The next cycle of this ongoing project will be September 15, 2014 – June 15, 2015.  Visit the Local History Project Page on the iEARN Collaboration Centre.

Don’t Waste – Create! Project

Join an ongoing global exchange of upcycling lessons, excursions for collecting herbs, exchange of reports about climate differences, water saving rules and how to get good drinking water, recipes with leftovers and different natural ingredients, and more.  Learn to save energy by cooking from the origins instead of precooked meals, and to use wild plants for food and health. Exchanges take place in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, and German, but others are welcome.  Visit theDon’t Waste – Create Page on the iEARN Collaboration Centre.