Our Community Brochure
Objectives
- Consider interesting and unique qualities about their community
- Work with classmates to create a community brochure
- Exchange brochures with a partner class to explore each other’s neighborhoods
Supporting Research
When students collaborate on project-based learning tasks that emphasize authentic social needs and storytelling, and result in a public artifact (e.g., creating a community brochure), research shows a positive impact on students’ achievements in social studies and literacy. Educators should encourage students to practice kindness and collaboration as they work together, and ensure that they seek out, listen to, and include their peers’ ideas throughout the project, and inclusivity as they exchange their projects with an Empatico partner class to explore each other’s communities and perspectives.
To learn more about this skill, and how it promotes students’ healthy growth and the development of empathy, please check out our Empathy Framework.
Materials
Activity Partners
Educator Note
Empatico offers an exciting opportunity for educators to connect their classrooms with other classes around the world. Once you have connected with another educator in the Empatico community, you can coordinate an asynchronous exchange as detailed below. This cross-cultural experience will enable students to share their stories, explore different perspectives, and make new friends in another community.
Empatico exchanges are most successful when educators plan and get to know each other beforehand. To do this, please schedule a video call to connect with your partner educator, and use this opportunity to share your goals for this experience, exchange helpful information about your students, and discuss how you will lead the exchange together. Our "Get to Know Your Partner Educator" resource provides suggested conversation prompts for your meeting.
Instructions
- Engage students in a conversation about your community by asking the following questions:
• Imagine we had someone visiting us. What would we want to show them? What are some beautiful, unique parts of our community, and the people who live here?
• What activities might they enjoy? (e.g., exploring our natural environment, taking photos of a landmark, trying our favorite foods, or attending a local festival)
• What information would you share about our community’s history? Are there any notable events or fun facts that we could describe?
- Create a community brochure using the Canva template below! The template can be accessed through this link by clicking on "Use template". Please note that you will need to sign in to a Canva account to use the template - to learn more about creating a free Canva for Education account, and adding your students to a virtual classroom, please visit this resource.
Students can work individually or in small groups to complete different sections, or collaborate on the brochure together as a class.
During this activity, remind students to practice kindness and respect by listening to, and including, others’ ideas and ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to contribute.
- Exchange your brochure with an Empatico partner class to help students explore each other’s communities! For example, you can download and send a PDF of your brochure, or screen-share the brochure during a live virtual exchange.
- After the exchange, ask students the following reflection questions:
• How did this activity help you see our community from a different perspective?
• What is something interesting or unique about our partner class’s community? If you could visit them, what would you want to do together?
• How are our communities similar to each other? How are they different?
• What are some questions that you have for our partner class? What is something that you are still curious about?
If students in both classes have individual devices (e.g., mobile phone, tablet, laptop, etc.)...
Use a platform such as Google Meet, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams which allows you to screen-share during a video call.
One educator should set up the Kahoot! game and share the code with students in both classes by following this tutorial about using Kahoot! in a remote learning environment, and share their screen so everyone can follow along.
If students in either class don’t have individual devices...
Follow the same instructions above, with one educator starting the game and sharing their screen so both classes can follow along.
Instead of students joining the game to answer the questions, they can hold up their fingers, call out their answer, or use a paper template to indicate their response.
If you prefer not using Kahoot!...
Use this document (Spanish version) to prompt students.