Communities

A stream about the interconnectedness of all living things.

For most of the streams that we teach at Brown-Barge, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders are mixed together in classes. This doesn't hold true in the beginning of the year, when we teach Communities, a stream that is aimed at introducing our incoming sixth graders to our integrated curriculum, and helping them find their place within our community.

Communities was an older stream that was no longer being taught when I began teaching at Brown-Barge. During my fourth year at the school, I took it upon myself to create an updated version of the stream. I created four classes for teams of educators to teach, and divided the stream into x thematic sections:

The Community at Brown-Barge Middle School
Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Skills
Ecological Communities
Early Human Civilizations
Modern Neighborhoods and Cities

Throughout each of these sections, teachers use an integrated curriculum to teach ELA, science, and social studies standards together with hands-on project-based learning.

Communities culminates with a simulation titled "BBM-Mess Hall". It's like a Town Hall meeting, but a lot messier.

Students identify a community problem (e.g., pollution, or cities that aren't walkable), then come up with a solution. They create a hands-on STEAM demonstration to showcase of their solution to showcase at the Mess Hall Meeting. It's like a science fair that asks students to engage with real world problems.

We encourage our students to be cerative and have fun with their presentations. Each class selects a mayor, and the students all work together to write a full script for their final presentation.

To aid teachers in implementing this two week project, I created a daily step-by-step lesson plan that every member of the team could follow.

A culmination of the skills that I've developed as an educator.

Creating Communities was one of the most enriching and enlivening experiences of my career. This was a culmination of the skills that I've developed as an educator at Brown-Barge. I was able to build integrated curriculum for four teachers from the ground up. I moved this stream from its inception as a vague idea about neighborhoods to a full 12-week unit asking students to find their place in an interconnected world.

I was lucky to lead a talented team to finish the pre-writing of our stream over the summer of 2024, and another excellent team of teachers who helped complete the curriculum as we taught the stream for the first time. Taking on this leadership role helped me learn how to collaborate with others while ensuring that our guiding vision remain intact.

Example Lesson: Battle of the Beaks

After learning about the principles of evolution, students work in small groups to complete this science lab that has each of them assume the role of a bird with varying beaks seeking varying types of food. Students use clothespins, binder clips, forks, or tweezers as their beaks, and they try to collect beans, toothpicks, and other types of "food". They work together to assemble their data into charts, and create attractive visuals to present their findings about the next generation of birds to the class.

This lesson is part of the section of Communities that focuses on ecological communities. Students go on to learn more about how human actions can affect the survival and adaptations of other species of plants and animals.

Example Lesson: Keeping It Cool

Students start by reading an article about architects who incorporate biological principles in their designs of urban buildings. They practice their annotation skills, have small group discussions, and write paragraphs that push their thoughts further.

Next, students learn about the steps involved in the scientif method before they apply them to their own experiment.

After formulating a question and writing a hypothesis, small groups of students construct two miniature cardboard building: one with an aluminum roof, and one with a roof made out of a square of sod. Outside, students measure the temperatures inside of these buildings over time. The results of their experiment are put into a line graph, and they write about the real-world implications of their findings.

This lesson combines standards for ELA and science, and teaches students to work together to solve problems creatively.

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