Pharaohs, Mummies, and Revolution, OH MY!

My students have spent the past few weeks studying Egypt long ago and Egypt today.  When we talk about Ancient Egypt my students are thrilled by the thoughts of mummies, and pyramids, and the stories that go with the topics.  It was very interesting learning about the mummification process, the rulers of Egypt long ago and how progressive they were as a civilization.  Many of my students were shocked to find out that women of Ancient Egypt were business owners and could buy and sell property!  What happened from the fall of Egypt in 669 B.C. to 2012 is a mystery to me.  Many citizens in Egypt have found themselves fighting for a better life, and a better country since January, 2011.  My students viewed some great stories from 60 minutes about the Revolution from January, 2011, and more recent footage from the Fall of 2011.  Here we are almost two years later and Egypt is not quite where they want to be.  What an awesome thing for my students to view and realize that Changing a government and promoting Democracy takes TIME.  I fear that people want things fast, quick, easy and life is anything but, quick and easy.  Yes, Egypt began a revolution with Facebook and Twitter and it lasted 18 days.  But their dream of having  a democracy is just unfolding and that could take years to resolve. 

The Revolution in Egypt began by some ordinary people who chose to be activists and seek change.  Imagine what  our students will be accomplishing in the next 30 years?

We had some fantastic conversations about how that connects to our world, as well as what our founding fathers felt like when our nation was struggling to be a Democracy.  How did they feel writing the first Constitution?  James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin didn't tweet their proposals or location of town hall meetings, but I bet they experienced some of the same thoughts and feelings as the revolutionaries in Egypt.  I bet there was fear, struggle, and they were not where they wanted to be in two years.  In fact, I bet some of our leaders and politicians today would say we are not where we want to be, TODAY!! Democracy isn't perfect, and it does take time! How lucky we are that our founding fathers signed that Constitution 225 years ago!

As my students complete their Egypt studies and projects I hope they begin to see and connect that all countries struggle to find a government system that works and serves the people.   There are good leaders and not so good leaders.  Some people understand how to use their power in a positive way and others use it for things almost unspeakable.  I hope they see that even our own country can struggle, but thankfully, WE HAVE DEMOCRACY and WE CAN VOTE.

Below follow some Egypt Projects we have completed:

Welcome Back to Room 707!

Tonight,  my windows are open.  The air is crisp and I am actually sipping hot tea while I write this post.  Is it August or October?  After a VERY hot summer, I welcome the change in weather.  This must be mother nature's way of telling me it's time for another school year to begin.  If you have spent the past year following our class blog, we invite you to stay.   If you are new to our blog, we welcome you and promise you'll be in for some amazing things this year.
You can just check our postings monthly or you can register and become a member.  Don't be fooled by the small number of registered members on this site.  Last spring, our blog was viewed more than 3, 500 times world wide.  Pretty exciting stuff!

I can't wait to get this school year started.  A few days from now, I will have 180 students daily in my  7th grade social studies classes.  We'll cover World Cultures of the Eastern Hemisphere.  Students will be encouraged to share and make connections from our classroom to current events in the news. Don't be surprised if in a few weeks, your child begs you to let them watch 60 minutes on Sunday evenings.  ( I can dream, right?)

One of my most favorite things about this class is that we do:  Projects, Projects, Projects.  I can't wait to see what students come up with this year.  Take a look at past posts to see some of the amazing things my past classes created.

Below you'll find a brief outline of what students will be studying.  I can only say you'll want to tune in again soon.  There are some especially exciting things on the horizon.

August-
Review Hemispheres and Map Skills, latitude and longitude

Mesopotamia

September-

Ancient Egypt

Northern Africa

World Religions

*October-

1^st-11^th Central Africa

*October 16^th Invisible Children/ Uganda Speaker and Assembly(This is gonna be AWESOME!)

October 17^th-19^th Wrap up Africa

October 22^nd- Begin Ancient Greece

November-

Finish Ancient Greece

Roman Empire

December-January

Middle Ages

Middle-Late January-March

Europe

World Wars I and II

March-

Japan

SE Asia

April-

India Subcontinent

Hinduism/Buddhism

May-

Australia

At Last!

It is with great JOY I post this today.  Finally after 39 days, our project and murals are complete.  The next best thing will be hearing Joseph Kony has been captured and held accountable for his crimes.  In the meantime, we celebrate our accomplishment and are grateful to share it with the world.

This project has carved a lasting memory in my soul.  The students in Mod 5 and the hundreds of others who worked on this project have taught me the power of self-affirmation and believing in the impossible.  They have embraced the idea of turning awareness into action.  They have chosen to speak up in opposition to something, rather than turn their heads away from information that may be unpleasant to read about,  hear about, think about, or look at.  If my students remember only one thing this school year, I hope it will be everything this project has encompassed:

~SPEAK up for INJUSTICE
~PARTICPATE in your community, state, country and world- you can make a difference
~CHANGE only happens when people TAKE ACTION
~LEARN from the PAST and use that knowledge to make each day BETTER
~HELP OTHERS IN NEED no matter how near or far they live from you

Some stats on our project:

~We officially collected, washed, counted, and sorted 40, 563 caps.

~We used about 3,852 caps on our mural-We have chosen to have each cap represent 8 children of the 30,000+  abducted in Central Africa by Joseph Kony.

~We used liquid adhesive to glue on the caps, but not all of them stuck so it took almost 14 pounds of screws to secure the caps to the murals.

~We chose a wide variety of caps to go on our mural, but the color and design dictated how many and which size we chose.  We tried to take at least one cap from as many donations as possible.

~The first mural has a picture of an village in Africa with Joseph Kony's face looming in the sky. We chose to use a combination of caps and artwork on this mural.  There are close to 850 caps on this mural.  The middle mural(2nd mural) contains about 2,700 caps.  This mural says, "STOP KONY."  It also has the symbol from Invisible Children.  The third mural, is a picture of a child soldier wearing a sash of bullets under a dark and ominous sky.  This mural has nearly 300 caps on it.  The caps on this mural highlight the dark sky, and the bullets worn by the soldier.  The bullets are fastened with 19 gauge-1mm wire.  We thought this would give the mural a unique look.  There are also bullets scattered on the ground.  The intent or message of the three murals is to raise awareness of who Joseph Kony is and what he has done to central Africa.  We hope each person that views this mural will begin to have a conversation about stopping atrocities like this world wide.  No child anywhere on this earth should be forced to be a child soldier.  When you look at this mural we hope you feel the same.

We hope this mural makes you have a conversation about keeping all children from child slavery, human trafficking and being child soldiers.

~ The leftover caps will be used for future projects, others will be donated to other schools who are wanting to create a mural of any design or topic, and the caps that are not the sizes we need will be recycled appropriately.

~The murals will be placed in our school for all to see.  When mounted on the wall our mural will be 8 ft. by 12ft.

~We used a combination of interior and acrylic paints.

~The drawing on this mural was done by Maddy Genskow(Excelsior Middle School) and Samantha Carpenter(Linn-Mar High School).

~The painting was done by several students, including Samantha, Maddy, and Mrs. Barry.

Sam putting on finishing touches.

Mrs. Barry and Sam on her last day painting.

 ~We received cap donations from ten area businesses and organizations and hundreds of students, teachers, family, and friends.

~More than 5,600 people have viewed our blog world-wide.

Kyle, Jake, and Josh checking the LRA tracker on the Invisible Children Website.  Another impressive thing about this group of students..... how intrinsically motivated they have been to complete this project.

We humbly thank all of you who helped us reach our goal by collecting caps, donating plywood, or items we needed, letting us borrow screw drivers, paintbrushes, etc.   Each and every cap counted and each and everyone of you made this possible.  Thank you for being a part of something BIG!  One day I hope you will be able to say, "I helped bring Joseph Kony to justice."

Kind Regards,
Debra R. Barry
7th grade Social Studies Teacher
Excelsior Middle School

Be Careful what you WISH for!

Four weeks ago I began a journey with my Mod 5 Class.  They, I mean WE decided to collect 30,000 bottle caps and plastic lids to show honor to the 30,000 children abducted in Central Africa by Joseph Kony.  We brainstormed using the caps to create a mural to hang in our school.  What has resulted is breathtaking....... 

Maddy, Matthew, Baylor, Luke and Anna painting on Mural #1

Maddy Genskow painting the sky on Mural #1

We have three four foot by eight foot pieces of plywood in our classroom that students are drawing, painting, and gluing bottle caps to.  I have students in Mod 5 and other Mods helping work on these boards.  I have an amazing former student, Samantha Carpenter, who is a Linn-Mar high school student, and talented artist.  She has graciously spent her "free" time working with Maddy Genskow, one of my Mod 3 students.  They have made our
murals look like masterpieces.  What fantastic drawing skills they have.  Every free minute is spent working on our murals: lunch, connections and after school.  This project has become SO much BIGGER than I could have ever imagined.

We now have over 40,000 lids, and caps of all colors, shapes and sizes.  This week we received a donation from Coca-Cola.  It has been so thrilling to see all the caps come in.  Little by little, cap by cap, they come to our classroom.  They show up in baggies, and tubs, and buckets, and sacks.  I have family and friends bringing them to my house, and people placing them in my mailbox at school.  I even received a box from Arkansas full of caps this week.  This project has taken on a life of it's own and I can't wait to share with you all the final product.  Keep watching for our next post, it's going to be fabulous.

Jack, Kyle and Alyssa glue caps on the Ugandan Huts on our mural.

Jordan, Riley, Liz, Lanessa, and Jake work on Mural #2 that says, "STOP KONY"

Making Progress!

Caps 2 Stop Kony Still Going.....

Here we are 20 days and counting and we have 38,606 plastic lids, caps, etc.  What a feeling to have exceeded our goal of 30,000 caps.  We are still collecting until May 1st, 2012.  We received some great donations from:

Red Robin-Cedar Rapids, Iowa 
Red Robin- Dubuque, Iowa
Starbucks-Marion Hy-Vee
University of Iowa 
Ekstrand Elementary School-DeWitt, Iowa
Linn Grove Elementary School-Marion, Iowa
City of Cedar Rapids Fire Department
Willow Gardens Nursing Home
Hundreds of students, staff, friends and family members have also collected caps for us

Our mural is in the design process.  We hope to have photos of the mural up for you soon. Meanwhile, here are some photos of Mod 2 and their campaign to "Cover the Day" to raise awareness of who Joseph Kony is, hanging posters at our school on Friday, April 20th, 2012. 

Jasmine A. explaining to Staff in our building who Kony is and why he should be stopped.

Our  school hallways now have 150 posters about the Kony 2012 Campaign.

Project update: BIG Weekend

The Easter Bunny was good to our project.  Over the past four days we have received 3,950 lids from Red Robin Restaurant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Terry Smith, Art Teacher from Ekstrand Elementary School in DeWitt, Iowa, donated 10 boxes of caps and lids leftover from a bottlecap mural she recently constructed at her school.  We have just begun counting her kind donation, but as of Tuesday, April 10th, 2012, we now have 18,833 caps for our project.  We have 6 large boxes left to count and many more people collecting for us. 

More than a Piece of Plastic

This year I let each of my Mods(classes) choose a project to complete.  You may have read in one of our earlier postings about my Mod 1 class and their ideas to reduce the national debt.  They made a video and wrote a three page letter to our President.  He responded a few weeks later with a letter and some photos.  Once my other Mods saw that, they totally got on board and stopped procrastinating and wanted to nail down a project.  Mod 3 is choosing a curriculum related item to learn about.(More to follow on this)  Mod 2 and 4 are still selecting their ideas and Mod 5 picked a rather ambitious idea.

After learning about propaganda, several of my students came across this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

Many of you may have seen it or have heard your children talking about it.  This video showcases capturing Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA in Central Africa.  His crimes have lasted more than 2 decades.  This video has taken some criticism and with everything that is put out in the media, everyone views it differently and there are lots of opinions.  My 5th Mod was extremely moved by the fact that he has abducted nearly 30,000+ children over the past 9 years and committed several crimes against humanity.  They made some serious connections between our WWII studies and propaganda used today.  Above all else, they just wanted to be a part of something and use their power for good.  It has been rather refreshing to hear in today's world.

My students decided that they would collect 30,000 plastic lids or bottle tops to use to create a mural for our school.  The 30,000 caps to honor the 30,000 abducted and the mural to spread awareness of this man's crimes and to beautify our school with recycled art. Thus doing a lot of good with one project.  We started this journey a week ago.  Not only has this been a Mod 5 thing, but I have kids from other Mods and all over our school helping.  It has been amazing.  One small idea has sparked an ARMY!


Just what can we accomplish with a bunch of pieces of plastic?  You might be surprised....

In one week we have:

~Contacted over 30 businesses, schools, and organizations to help us collect or donate caps
(people are helping and the caps are rolling in.  It is humbling to be out in public and have someone hand you a plastic bag filled with bottle caps because they heard about this project!  That is powerful.)
~Received 3 pieces of 4 by 8 ft. plywood from Morris Wood Enterprises
~Collected, washed, counted, and sorted by color 6,887 plastic caps and lids
~primed our wood to prepare it for our design(students created the design and I can't wait for you to see it)
~lined up volunteers to help us draw, and paint

I SEE plastic lids EVERYWHERE now.  I jump on them like they are GOLD.  I have all my family and friends collecting and they all probably think I am insane.   I view these caps as more than a piece of plastic.  I view them as an amazing gift.  They represent people just like you or me that didn't choose for something terrible to happen to them.  And my students cared very much to honor them.  My students felt a connection and were intrinsically motivated to make a giant statement on their behalf.  Intrinsically motivating 7th graders can be tricky, so when I say this is refreshing, I MEAN it.

I look at things differently now.  I have told many children over the course of 17 years of teaching that they can accomplish anything if they put their mind to it.  Yet, sometimes I know maybe that doesn't always happen for everyone.  We sometimes put our minds to things and they don't work out the way we hope. A week ago, when my students suggested this I found myself saying: "Let's collect some caps and make a SMALL mural.  Cool Idea!"  My student's said, "What if we collect 30,000 caps?"  I said, "What if we don't collect 30,000 caps?  Then what?"  NOW I AM SAYING--"WHAT IF WE DO???"  A week ago I had zero caps in my classroom.  Tonight, I have close to 7,000 plastic caps of all shapes, colors, and sizes sitting in buckets! What a joy.

The next time you look at a cap or plastic lid, wherever you are, I hope you think of this and smile, after you mail us the cap, of course!!:-)

EVERY CAP COUNTS, SO EVEN IF YOU DONATE JUST ONE, THAT IS SOMETHING!
If you have caps to donate we need 23,113 more by May 1st, 2012.  Thank you for helping.

Mrs. Barry's Social Studies Class

Room 707

Excelsior Middle School

3555 North 10^th Street

Marion, Iowa 52302