This year, the grade 5 exhibition featured a variety of investigations: cars
and car pollution, video game addiction, how blind people can access comic
books, the importance of historical ship preservation, the amount of pollution
produced by car exhaust, the threat of cybercrime, etc.
The exhibition involved several weeks of hard work and intense preparation by both the students and their teacher-mentors. Students had to first
identify a subject they were passionate about, then turn it into an issue (and
develop an investigation around this action) which they then investigated.
Students were tasked with linking action and reflective thinking to their
chosen subject.
The exhibition is the final unit investigation in the Primary Years Programme,
and it allows students the opportunity to show off the skills they have learned
over the past few years as well as their independence and ability to take
responsibility for their work.
Raeven and Nitya studied the declining use of board
games among
today's youth and the effects of the increase of the use of electronic
games on
society. Their Central Idea: "Family activities like board games and
making crafts may be less valued because electronic games are taking
over, and
they have a negative effect on our health."
Working around the same idea, Ribhav focused on the
negative
effects of the use of electronic games on the health of children and
adults. To
illustrate his project, he made a large box, each side of which
represented the
negative health effects of a different type of electronic game. Here, he
is
illustrating how excessive use of computers can damage our health.
"My passion is to draw comics,"; Teddy explained
in his report, "so I thought to myself, 'how would a blind person READ
MY
COMICS?!?!?' And so that turned into my investigation with surprising
results.
It actually turned out that NO ONE makes comics for blind people, and I
thought, wow, I need to make comics for the blind...so I did."
Tulia's passion in life is words, so it made sense that for her project
she
chose to study the English language. She asked, "Why are some old words
not
used anymore?" Her response: "Mainly because it's just not cool. I mean, it's old. People like to be modern and new--21st century. Saying 'thou shalt
not gnaw
upon thy rose-hued bonbons,' just makes you weird. People want to be
cool, or
at least normal. It's just more cool and easy to say, 'don't eat your
pink
candies.'
William and Keita investigated pollution and
the effect it has on fish: "We investigated the effects, and we found
that if
fish have too much pollution it can be very harmful for the environment
and
humans. We found that if the fish have
too much mercury in them it would not be good for humans as it would
cause symptoms
such as loss of bone around the gums, bleeding of the gums, short term
memory
loss and you would taste metal in your mouth and it can kill you."
These two budding young animal rights activists, Al-Dana and Elena, demonstrated,
through their project, the effect human greed had on the animal
population. The
central idea that guided their project was: "the cruelty and killing of
animals
for human greed may cause species to become extinct in the near future."
6 Rue Beethoven, 75016 Paris, France