By contextualizing the Underground Railroad, students have a chance to construct meaning relevant to their lives and rooted, not in a distant history, but rife with contemporary implications. To round out the sampler with a topic from science, one that many educators choose is the environment. Because of its present-day relevance, competing interests, and the absolute interdependence of habitats, it s difficult to think of the topic separately from its context. The stories of real people. Current news articles share how the development versus conservation debate is expressed within communities.
Big developers post their corporate Web sites as do non-profit and citizen groups.
Students are placed in the center of a complex debate. Don t let the wording of the example questions intimidate you. Essential questions that go to the heart of important themes can be expressed in more simple terms for younger students without diminishing their significance. If you need some words of inspiration, you might recall a famous quote from Jerome Bruner, who in 1960 said, Any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development. Let s conclude this article with a review of strategies for moving from a content focus to one that places the topic within a rich and authentic context.