The Sargent Park Inquiry project started in November of 2007 and is still going. The goal of the project it to have students created 2 minute videos about issues that are important to them and the world. Students got to choose their groups and the students did not need to be in the same room. Sargent Park has 143 grade 8 students and all of them are taking part in this video project.

November
4 Charities
To start building empathy in the students the Grade 8 students highlighted the charities chosen by the student council this year. The students created posters, pamphlets and presentations to publicize the 4 Charity Campaign around the school.

Four groups of students created presentations in Google Presentation to share in Assemblies with the rest of the school. Each Assembly started with the students presentation followed by a brief showing of a movie. Here are two examples of the presentations and the assemblies that were given.

This is the movie we showed the students at the assembly


The charity assemblies and poster campaign were a success. We raised over $600 for Pennies for Heaven, 14 bags of coats and winter clothes for Koats for kids and Winnipeg Harvest and Siloam Mission received donations too.

Pay It Forward

Following the Charity Assemblies the Grade 8 Students watched the movie Pay It Forward. Following the movie the students were asked to do a "Pay It Forward" deed over their winter break. The students documented their work at their class blogs.

Pay It Forward

816 Pay it Forward

817 Pay It Forward

841 Pay it Forward

873 Pay it Forward

Here is an excellent example of what the students did.


When we returned from the break the students were asked to form groups for their movie. They created Google Presentations to house the information needed for their movie project. The students then were given a class to see all the possible topics for their movie.

Spinquiry had started.

Following the choosing of topics the students in groups of two classes watched the movie Stolen Childhoods. Here they took notes using Debono's Thinking Hats. The students then filled out chart paper and a google presentation for the movie. All students shared 1 document. 70 kids were able to edit at the same time. That is the power of Google!!




The students were now underway in thinking and starting to create their movies. Using a Google Form the students chose their topics and selected their groups. The students now added a supervising teacher to their groups. This gave teachers access to the student's work to assess and give feedback on.

Students up to now have to have 10 thin questions each and one thick question each at their presentation. From this beginning each student will write an essay and then from the 4 essays that the group has written the students will start to make their movies. Movies are expected to be completed by late April of 2009.

Here is an example of the presentations.