Theme 1: On the Move

Our 1st transdisciplinary theme was 'Where We Are in Place and Time' entitled 'On The Move'.

The theme ran for 5 weeks, from July 30th - August 31st 2007.

The Central Idea of this theme is ' Throughout history people have been on the move, with wide-ranging effects on themselves and on the indigenous populations'. With this central idea, we hope the students could get an enduring understanding that migration is caused by certain reasons and has impact on the migrants and on the indigenous population.

To start the theme, we had a warm-up activity to get the students 'tuned in' with the theme. We watched a movie called 'Journey from The Fall', about a family who had to flee their country (Vietnam) because of the war. It's a very moving story.

We asked our students to respond to this story by writing a letter to the main character, Mr. Long & family, and expressing their feelings about the migration and what they would have felt if they were in his place.

After that activity, the students were asked to create a mind map about how their family migrated. Also, the students had an interview with some of the school community members who had migration experiences. The products of this activity are mind maps and comics. Here are some examples of their work.

To enrich their exposure to this theme, we had an excursion to two areas in our city (Bogor) which has experienced a deep impact caused by the migration. Those two areas are Kelurahan Babakan Pasar which is the 'China Town' in Bogor city, and the other one is the Arab settlers in Kelurahan Empang.

The students had their share of experiencing direct interaction with some of the community members by interviewing some of the people there, most of whom are direct descendents of their ancestors who migrated there. The students also could see some of the proof of assimilation, such as in culture and architecture. Here's how we had some fun doing it!

In the end, after all this hard work and fun, we wrapped-up this theme by performing a summative assessment by making a Power Point presentation of a fictional migrant's journey. The Power Point presentation consisted of background of the character, homeland condition, new destination attractiveness, reasons for moving, and hopes and reality after migrating. Our students are so creative! Let's take a look on how they presented it!