On my second visit to Mrs. Cosgriff’s fifth grade class at Central Elementary school, I took a more hands on approach vs the first visit where I was a passive observer. My partner on the first visit was more outgoing than I was. Throughout their semester, the fifth graders were learning a lesson on immigration to the United States through Ellis Island. All of this was gearing towards a big project about immigration. The project was a simulation of Ellis Island, Mrs. Cosgriff’s class were manning the stations of Ellis Island and another fifth grade class was acting as the immigrants and visiting Mrs. Cosgriff’s room. Joe and I’s role in the classroom for this visit was to help engage with the students. We went to separate groups to help lead the discussion and research.  I went to a smaller group that originally only had three students in it. The purpose of the groups were for the students to engage in sustained inquiry about what their assigned station was. The students were given a web page that provided research on each station at Ellis Island. In my group I made sure to help guide the research more in depth by asking questions that made the students think harder about the details that go into their station. My group had two quiet students, one of them joined the group late and was unsure about what was happening. To make sure student engagement was high, I asked questions specifically to the students who were reserved. Once given the chance they were helpful to the project overall.

The invented idea for a learning activity that I came up with was centered around human rights and human trafficking. I thought it would go along well with the curriculum that Mrs. Cosgriff had already planned. My learning activity is based around the two PBL standards of public product and student voice and choice. Human rights and human trafficking is considered to be an “adult topic” but the reality is that human trafficking can happen to anyone. To help teach our children basic human rights and the prevention of human trafficking, the students would create a children’s book for those younger than them. To help ensure it is age appropriate and that the students creating the content understand it themselves, the students are doing their own, supervised,  research. The classroom would be split up into groups like how Mrs. Cosgriff did for the Ellis Island simulation.  Each group would be assigned a topic to do research on. The topics will range from, what is human trafficking, who are the victims of human trafficking, where does human trafficking occur, and how to prevent human trafficking. There are many safe websites available that the students could go to but it is up to the teacher’s discretion to find what they deem as age appropriate website for the students to use. As the students do their research and prepare their portion of the book, they are also learning about human trafficking themselves. Once the information has been edited, the teacher will place it together as a book and have it ready for the public.