Past Civilization Legacy

Unit of Inquiry #5 - Where We Are In Place and Time (Past Civilization)

On Friday, April 28, Grade 5 celebrated their past civilization learning with two activities:  Grade 8 & 5 Engaging with Japanese History and creating a Slideshow documentary with audio. Students learned about past civilization’s legacy and developed skills as a researcher and thinker.

Central Idea: Evidence of the past civilization can be used to make connections to present-day societies.

Lines of Inquiry:

• Characteristics of civilizations and societies.
• Connections between past and present societies.
• Processes involved in collecting, analyzing and validating evidence.

Grade 5 and 8 Japanese History

Learning Intention #1:  To understand the Japanese historical periods’ (Jomon~Edo) significant important events.

Grade 5 would like to offer Grade 8 for designing and sharing their Primary-level books about Japanese historical periods from Jomon Era to Edo era. We were excited to learn about historical events that occurred during each period and stress the importance of those events. Grade 5 students also had an opportunity to share their findings of past civilizations.

Grade 8 presenting their books to grade 5

Past Civilization Legacy Documentary Presentation

We are researchers.  We are thinkers.  We are historians.

Lines of Inquiry:

• Characteristics of civilizations and societies.
• Connections between past and present societies.
• Processes involved in collecting, analyzing and validating evidence.

During our final week of Past Civilizations unit, Grade 5 students chose a past civilization's legacy and describe its connection to modern day civilization. Through dedication and heavy researching, students built their knowledge of the characteristics of a legacy and reflected on its historical importance to past and present day societies. Each student designed a documentary using Google Slides and recorded their voice.

Many students demonstrated life-long learning as they expressed their interest to either continue learning more about their past civilization of focus or investigate another past civilization.

Sarah Hwang 5A, " I think Ancient Rom aqueduct is the best thing about my learning. Next time, I want to search about Ancient Egypt."

Judy Yamamuro 5A, "The best thing I learned is the lives of different ancient civilizations and the features. I didn't know much about ancient civilizations and that I like to research on the Internet more. I can research about civilizations with books."

Where do we go next in our learning destination for the final weeks of grade 5's Unit of Inquiry?

How We Express Ourselves (Media and Advertisement)

Central Idea:

Different forms of media can be used to influence the behavior of people.