Project+Ideas+for+Your+Students

Project Ideas for Students
Also see the Great Race Curriculum Wiki for specific projects and curriculum strands.

After conducting extensive background research in a real-world scenario, students will create a variety of products which demonstrate what they have learned.

The student audience will not be just their teachers, or even just their school or local community; their audience will be the world.

Exceptional student projects will be submitted for permanent placement in the historical archives of various museums throughout the world. These include submissions to the Smithsonian Museum, The American Library of Congress, and similar historical and scientific archives in many countries.

Students, teachers, experts, university professors in a variety of discipines, filmmakers, business and industry experts in a variety of fields, historians, museum curators and more - as well as the teams participating in the race - will be using The Great Race Wiki to collaborate, gather information, communicate, innovate, design and create student projects.

The curriculum will be designed to deliver the content standards and skills through this meaningful, real-world, significant historical event. This is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the students!

Imagine the levels of learning and student motivation as your students (perhaps in Los Angeles, New York City, or Cedarville, Arkansas) directly collaborating with students at schools in France, Canada, Russia, China, and every other country in the world!

21st Century Schools and the Advisory Board for The Great Race Global Collaborative Classroom Project will be available to provide free assistance in your project design and delivery, to help locate resources, to connect you to experts around the world, to provide and guide the evolution of The Great Race Wiki and will make available the free use of a live, real-time, virtual classroom available upon request from anyone anywhere to meet, design, talk, hear each other, see each other, and to work on live white boards, meet in breakout rooms, and reconvene in the main meeting room. This Virtual Classroom may also serve as a lecturn for guest speakers from around the world. Lectures will be recorded and available for your viewing at any time.

Possible Projects
This is a beginning list of project ideas, and much more will be added in the coming weeks. Full-time work on this project, sponsored by 21st Century Schools, has begun on a full-time basis effective December 28, 2006. So you can expect a veritable explosion of new and refined information, resources and ideas. Please submit your ideas for relevant student projects.

We will also be developing a rubric defining the critical attibutes expected for a quality student project worthy of presentation to their audience - the world!

1. Design a video game based on The Great Race which teaches significant content and skills, from financial literacy, to ecoliteracy, history, geography, cultures, literature, science, math, physics, art and physical education and physical fitness.

2. Documentaries - students can create min-documentaries such as those we see on The History Channel, The Science Channel, The Discovery Channel and similar channels. Each documentary may focus on one aspect of The Great Race Project. There is no limit to the topics that could be addressed. We will add a list of suggested topics in the next few days and weeks, and would like to have your ideas as well.

3. Oral Histories - compilations of team members involved in the race, or auto designers, scientists, media, observers, etc.

4. Photo essays

5. Artistic creations - new mujsical compositions, poetry, paintings, musical stage productions, dance, video game design, etc.

6. Literature - creative writing in various genres based on any aspect of the project, from historical to futuristic.

7. Physical Fitness instruction or how-to DVDs. Auto racing requires more physical stamina than any other sport.

8. Auto design - build a car

9. New technolgies

10. Filmmaking - make a film, then hold a community film festival. Enlist the assistance of experienced or university student filmmakers. You will find organizations in and near your community for individuals involved in all aspects of filmmaking. Many universities have RTF departments (Radio-Television-Film) and their professors or graduate students may be interested in helping you with creating a film.

11. Environmental projects (more to come)

12. Public Service Announcements

13. Web sites

14. Organize a local Great Race

15. PowerPoint Presentations

16. Museum - create your own museum.

17. Service Learning Projects - these can be at any level, from a single person in your community to the entire local, state, national or global community. Projects can focus on automobile safety, nutrition, civics, environment and more.