In Unit 1 of 7th Grade I&S, our key concepts are Development and Systems and our related concept is Sustainability within a Global Context of Scientific and Technical Innovation. Throughout the class, we look at how the environment of the near east helped to bring about the rise of civilization. Historians often argue that irrigation was a key factor in establishing civilization and we examine this development as seen in ancient Sumeria, the world’s oldest civilization. Students in their table groups underwent a formative simulation where there ancient Sumerian village, over a period of many simulated centuries, learned the relation of irrigation to the development of their overall society.
Now in their Summative, the table groups had three objectives to tie together all of the units concepts and also to give back to their community through Service Action. The Summative had three parts, 1 was for them to make a model of an irrigation system and display it the Lanya library for the rest of the school to see. Also, they created a report on Taiwan’s water system. Finally, as for their Service Action they have created a campaign where they spread a message of water conservation among the students and staff at our own middle school.
The student groups proved to be very creative and diverse in how they constructed their irrigation models. Some were scale sized models of an irrigated farm. Others were working models of water transportation and storage. Each model has signage that explains the working and meaning of the model. They were displayed in the library in the last week of October, 2023.