Description

I want the students to ultimately create a story of the history of everything. This would include the story of energy, and how this energy transformed into matter creating the particle soup that now makes up our current existence. But what do I want the students to display to capture this? For me this required looking back at the standards and asking myself what should the students take away from this project and what do I want our audience to take away from the presentation? The more I thought about this the more I thought of this as a teaching moment for the students and potentially a learning experience for audience members. Having the history of everything before you can be very complex and messy, which is precisely the vibe I want the presentation to give.

For the product I also want students to have autonomy and choice in what they choose to report on and how they choose to give that information. Some of the standards we would cover are on evolution and earth’s history. These two categories could have a series of connections between ancient and modern animals, where students could display the evolutionary changes that have taken place. This connection could also be made to humans and our evolutionary history as well. My prototype is linear in fashion to keep it simple for presentation, however there is a ton of choice embedded in the final product that a web of connections will naturally unfold. 

Regardless of what students pick to report on and write/draw about in their final product it will all be tied in with the standards in some way, meanwhile curating a story of the history of everything. This experience reminded me of how specific I need to be with demands and expectations around what the presentation looks like. The story could easily feel disconnected if that isn’t the focus. Which means I want to create specific prompts around each topic to help direct the writing towards these connective pieces, ultimately linking the story together in a cohesive manner.