Design A Culture

Design A Culture

created by Jodi Patterson

GRADE: 6

CRITICAL CHALLENGE: Design a culture based on something that interests you.

OVERVIEW: After a thematic unit on world cultures, students will review the elements that make up a culture. Students will then design a culture based on something that interests them (i.e. The people of Soccerland). The students will explain the features of the culture and how the elements of a culture are met with these features.

REQUISITE TOOLS:

Background Knowledge

elements of culture
how cultures affect the people that live in them
knowledge of environmental effects on culture

Criteria for Judgement

elements of a culture - how they are incorporated, how many.

Critical Thinking Vocabulary

tolerance
classification

Thinking Strategies

brainstorming
classification
t-chart

Habits of Mind

knowledge and tolerance of other cultures.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

The students will need to know three points:

1) The elements that make up a culture

2) Why these elements are important to a culture

3) How these elements are affected by outside forces (environment, invasion)

Students will brainstorm things that interest them that they could create a culture around. (soccer, gardening, math)
Students will write about the features of their culture, and why they have designed it this way.
Students will draw or sketch several features of their culture.
Students will design symbols for their culture after looking at and discussing symbols from ours.

EVALUATION: Designs will be assessed by looking at how many features of a culture are included, how much thought has been put into it, and how the features make up a whole.

EXTENSION: The class could discuss the culture designs and identify which elements are used in each culture. Alternately, the students could create ways to join their cultures together, making a "world map" using the environments they created for their cultures.

Grade 6

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