Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-2003

Publication Title

Cable in the Classroom

First Page

6

Last Page

9

Abstract

In Georgia, kindergarten and first-grade students conduct a community mapping activity to figure out the needs of the children within the school. Kindergartners new to the school say that the school layout is confusing and it is hard to find their way to the classrooms. Each class considers solutions, and students decide to label the hallways with street signs. Each class brainstorms potential names for the hallways, and first grade students design and conduct a survey. They eliminate names that do not represent positive images. (No Shock Street because it would scare the five-year-olds.) The surveys are administered, the data are entered into a spreadsheet on the computer, and the students review the street names with the highest votes and allocate them to particular hallways. They then grapple with the question of whether the signs they make to identify the halls should be permanent or whether students each year should have the chance to name the halls so they feel more ownership of the school. They decide to poll all of the students, graph the results, and decide based on majority rule. While reviewing the polls, they decide whether bar graphs, line graphs, or pie graphs are the best way to present the data to other students so that everyone can understand the results.

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