Our goal was to explore San Diego and to imagine our future in this city. First, we studied local government and businesses and the jobs they provide. Then, we imagined life here in the future.
Kindergarten and first grade students discussed buildings they see each day and what work people do there. They drew pictures of places they like to visit. Second and third graders thought about what they need and compared that to what they want. They described places where people they know work and where they shop. Fourth and fifth graders thought about where they might work, and they learned to imagine future jobs from looking at stores or in the Yellow Pages. They described businesses they knew or studied.
Sixth graders interviewed our Muir teachers about jobs they have had besides teaching. Seventh and eighth grade AVID students made connections between their college plans and jobs they might have. The CyberFair project gave them a good reason to phone or email workplaces in San Diego. They also wrote persuasive letters to convince leaders to make changes.
Together the seniors visited the largest employer in San Diego County--UCSD. Students discovered internships and service projects during CyberFair. Our district career counselor visited and trained them to look business contacts in the eye, to speak firmly and politely, and to write follow-up notes. Many high schoolers wrote about places where they worked or places they visited first hand in San Diego. The government class studied the various county governments as a part of CyberFair, and from statistics they gathered, they made predictions about the future of San Diego.
On these pages we have collected the work of students of all ages from Muir. We are eager to see projects from other places to expand our thinking about our global future.
with exchange teacher
at USD, November 2004
With CyberFair, we came together as a school with students ages five to eighteen to put together a jigsaw of San Diego organizations and to imagine our future working together.
"Prepare and Unite"
This CyberFair project was one of our biggest school-wide projects. It also involved many of the parents and friends of students.
Fewer than 50% of our students have internet connections at home, but we have sixty internet ready computers at our school. We do have DSL connections. This was our first year using twenty school laptops. Six years ago we had only five student computers in our whole school, so we have learned to use the new technologies together in the past few years.
Most of us are fairly new to computers, and we use them only at school. We have learned to search and to communicate online. Time was probably our biggest challenge. We solved this problem by starting early in the year and staying after school so that students could use the school computers. We hope that the project helped us with one big challenge--the challenge of improving school reading and math scores.
Muir School is a diverse school in the San Diego Unified School District. We are small, with 350 students in kindergarten through grade 12. Our county, San Diego County, is in the southwestern corner of the United States. We border Mexico and from the air San Diego and the Tijuana area look almost like one city. We have mild weather all year and enjoy mountains, desert, and the beach.
Content standards addressed:
Information Literacy Continuum: 3.2.6: Student uses appropriate technology tools for data collection, information analysis, problem solving, group collaboration and presentation.
English Writing Standards: 2.0 Writing Applications: Students write narrative, expository, persuasive, and descriptive texts. The writing demonstrates a command of standard American English and the research, organizational, and drafting strategies outlined in Writing Standard 1.0.2.0
Reading Comprehension (Focus on Informational Materials) Students read and understand grade-level-appropriate material. They describe and connect the essential ideas, arguments, and perspectives of the text by using their knowledge of text structure, organization, and purpose.
Required curriculum: CyberFair helped our AVID classes complete the required study of careers, and it gave the government class an interesting way to learn about city governments.
New skills: Web page building was new to all of us. For some, word-processing was also new this year. An eighth grade student taught everybody how to incorporate a free forum into our webpage.
Group concepts: This is a perfect chance for us to enjoy our K-12 community at Muir. Older students helped younger ones with their projects. Younger students inspired the older ones.
Role we play in our school community: We each take on some kind of leadership when we come to Muir. We are so small that everybody has to be in charge of something! We have gained a new respect for the jobs our parents do.
Internet for teaching and learning: We'll always remember the day the mayor of Santee answered our email with a very candid interview! The internet not only gives us information quickly but it gives us information that is personalized in a way never before dreamed of. We are looking forward to reading the projects of other schools.