How does the Origins ITU Promote Equity and Social Justice?
The Origins ITU promotes equity and social justice in many ways:
Grounded in the Lives of Our Students
This project gives our students the ability to explore their own origins which are unique to them and them alone. There is no right or wrong answer to this project, but only the satisfaction of understanding their history as a human being on multiple fronts. Students will be able to present their unique findings as determined by them.
Critical Thinking and Academically Rigorous
Students must think critically on many fronts. Students will learn how genetic traits are inherited, and go through several scientific labs which give them real world experience in this area. Students will have to research their family history using multiple avenues such as internet and ancestor interviews. Students will have to present their information to the class using multiple media techniques such as video and powerpoint while using a self constructed presentation framework.
Multicultural and Anti-Racist
This project gives students the opportunity to discover their family history through a scientific framework and to cooperatively collaborate to present the information to the class as a whole. The class as a whole will be able to see the history of an individual through the eyes of that individual and not as would be expected from a source such as a mass produced textbook. The student is their own purveyor of how they want the class and world to view their story.
Experimental and Visionary
This project is both experimental and visionary for many reasons. For example, in many class settings there is a pragmatic approach to education where there is a solid drawing line between subject matter and where projects stay within those bounds. Here, the lines are erased as students use knowledge from three distinct subjects to create the Origins ITU as a means to express their family story. This project is also visionary in the sense that the student becomes the teacher. None of the students peers or the teacher can understand the students story better than the student.
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