The students will explore their origins by completing a family tree, a family inventory, and writing about a family “Hero/Shero.”

While doing this project, 6i students will learn many aspects of the origins of “family.” Our students will be expected to interview family members in order to discover their cultural and genetic backgrounds. These interviews will help the student gain a better understanding of what genetic and cultural qualities they share and what make them unique. These findings will be presented in a video photo story that will also include narration.

Students will explore fairytales and mythologies from different cultures, and they will each choose a folktale from one of their own heritages to learn and retell (checkpoint #1). For checkpoint #2, students will assume the role of town storyteller and share their folktales aloud.

Student will learn more about their family origin and select a person from their family to be a Hero/Shero. They will tell us about the person and why he/she was chosen (checkpoint #1). For checkpoint #2, students will write an in-depth description about their Hero/Shero using character traits learned this school year.

Students will demonstrate knowledge of cultural traits by sharing family cultural trait information during the “Our Real World” presentation. Students will also report on family geographic origins by country and continent. Checkpoint # 1 will be to gather family tree information. Checkpoint # 2 is making a visual family tree with all the information

For checkpoint #1, students will determine the mean, median, mode, and range of their family member’s names. For checkpoint #2, they will determine the mean, median, mode, and range of paragraphs from articles on heredity which will serve as practice. The final project will include three distinguishable facts (from checkpoint #1) as they relate to students’ findings.

The students will explore their genetic background by completing a Family Heredity Inventory. Each student will interview relatives by asking them questions from this inventory (“Can you twirl your tongue?” Is your first or second toe longer than the first?” etc…). This will enable the kids to better understand difficult vocabulary and to begin to see how hereditable traits are passed down to subsequent generations (Checkpoint #1). The students will then use what they learned about hereditable traits and adaptations to draw a fictitious animal. This animal must have an adaptation that has allowed it to be successful in its environment (Checkpoint #2). Their video photo story will capture images of 3 genetic qualities that they share with a relative (Final project).

Students will edit and compile their group video using Adobe Premiere Pro software. Students will be responsible for editing the raw video, inserting title and credit slides, and adjusting the audio for the final video. For checkpoint # 1, complete a country database. For Checkpoint # 2 students will take pictures and graph their hereditary traits.