Lesson Fifteen - Museum of Ancient Civilizations Celebration

Description
Students create exhibits for a Museum of Ancient Civilizations. This exhibit demonstrates students' learning about a particular ancient civilization. The museum exhibits include descriptions and examples of clothing, food, shelter, daily life, cultural practices, beliefs, economies and governments. Ancient civilizations studied may include Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Mayan, Aztec or others, including the civilization of North American Aboriginal peoples.

Expectations
- identify and compare the ways in which people in various early civilizations met their physical and social needs, including how they interacted with and used the natural environment;
- use a variety of resources and tools to investigate characteristics of a number of early civilizations, including their significant innovations and technological advances;
- show how innovations made by various early civilizations have influenced the modern world.
– identify major early civilizations (e.g., Mediterranean,African, Asian, North/Central/South American) and locate them on a world map;
– identify some scientific and technological advances made by two or more early civilizations (e.g., written language, calendar, time-keeping methods, invention of the wheel, medicine, sculpture, irrigation, building methods, architecture, embalming, aqueducts, metalwork);
– make connections between some elements of modern life and similar elements from early civilizations (e.g., the Olympic ideal, democracy, money as a medium of exchange, citizenship, philosophy, mythology, trade, social structures, legal systems, theatre, architecture);
– use appropriate vocabulary (e.g., culture, myth, legend, civilization, technology, democracy ) to describe their inquiries and observations.
– compare and respond to myths and legends from two or more early civilizations;
– formulate questions to develop a research focus (e.g.,What farming methods were used by the Aztecs? How did trade between early African civilizations contribute to mutual prosperity? How did social
organization differ among various North American First Nation peoples?);
– compare maps of early civilizations with modern maps of the same area;

Teaching / Learning
PRESENTATION DAY - Museum Presentations:
1. Set up an area of the school as a Museum of Ancient Civilizations. Display all student projects, including their Learning Logs and artifacts.
2. Have students come dressed as people from the civilization they have researched.
3. Invite students to bring examples of the foods, music, dance, artifacts, or other examples of life from their civilization.
4. Create tour groups made up of students with one member representing each civilization studied.
5. Have each tour group meet at a different civilization exhibit in the museum.
6. Tour groups rotate around the museum, stopping at each exhibit to hear a presentation from the group member who completed that exhibit.
7. As students hear each presentation, they complete the chart titled "Ancient Civilizations Chart."
8. Give every student an Oral Presentation Rubric and the Museum Display Rubric. Tell them that each of them uses this rubric to assess his/her own presentation and final project. This is a self-assessment. Remind them to include comments about one strength, one weakness, and one next step that they can use next time.
9. Students could invite a family member, friend, or teacher to come to the museum to see the exhibit during the evening on the day of the museum presentations.
10. Each student is responsible for working as a museum tour guide when their guest arrives. S/he should use the chart created during the day tours to help them explain information about the other museum groups' presentations.

Adaptations
Refer to the suggestions for adaptations made throughout this unit.

Assessment
Throughout the student work periods for this project, use the Group Work Observations Checklist at regular intervals to assess student group work behaviours, and anecdotal notes to assess how well students are handling the research and inquiry process and connecting big ideas.

Use the Oral Presentation Rubric created by the class to evaluate student presentations. It is suggested that you do this on the parent night by circulating to the different display areas while tours are being given.

On the next day, use the Museum Display Rubric provided to evaluate the written component of student projects. This is a group mark and cannot reflect individual student learning for reporting purposes.

Students should also use the Oral Presentation Rubric and Museum Display Rubric to assess the project they have been assigned.

Assessment Strategies
- Exhibition/demonstraion
- Essay
- Observation
- Self Assessment

Assessment Recording Devices
- Rating Scale
- Rubric


Resources
Museum Display Rubric
Ancient Civilizations Chart

Notes to Teacher
As the Museum of Ancient Civilizations is an opportunity for celebration of learning, take the time to really enjoy viewing projects with students and parents. Have fun.

Although an outline of parameters and components of the final project has been provided, it has been left up to individual teachers to determine the scope and style of the final products based on time constraints, needs, and abilities of students.

When introducing this lesson, dress in role as the curator of the Ancient Civilization Museum once again (see Lesson 14).

As this lesson provides an excellent opportunity for public sharing of student work, an open house format is encouraged. This requires students to meet very specific timeline requirements. In addition, it is necessary to discuss requirements for holding such an event with the school administration. Invite friends and family members as guests to visit the museum. The inviting student will be the the tour guide of the exhibit for that guest.

Take video and digital camera images of the final products and the museum event for celebration later.

One student in the class could create a promotional brochure or invitation to the event. This is an extra challenge for a student identified as gifted.