Group Work - Putting Things Together

How's your brain? Big questions sometimes hurt more than little ones. For sure they can make for sloppier answers. But we're not so much interested in you finding a "right answer" as we are in helping you arrange some really big ideas into the way you look at the world. The ideas you've come up with will now get combined with those of your teammates. The challenge is to write the most insightful response to the following question. People spend their entire lives studying what we took a quick look at:

The Globe

astronomy, meteorology, ecology, technology, etc.

Plants

botanists, conservationists, farmers, etc.

Animals

zoologists, veterinarians, wildlife biologists, etc.

People

artists, philosophers, historians, sociologists, etc.

Culture

anthropologists, economists, politicians, chefs, curators, etc.

Language

linguists, social scientists, advertisers, speech pathologists, etc

If you want to learn more about what these experts do in their jobs, you can discuss it with your class, your teacher, parents, or online partners. Of course you can look at a dictionary as well.

Getting to Work

After looking through the six Windows on the World, your team should be full of interesting ideas and insights. The trick now will be to give some shape to these ideas. We say some shape, because forcing things together might make for mushier thinking. See how you do at answering The Big Question as a team. Some guidelines will follow. Use them if they seem helpful. Also, read the evaluation Rubric again to be as successful as you can.

What about this Big Wide World, hey?

How does it all work?

You've made up some rules that explain how the planet, animals, plants, people, their cultures and communication interact and overlap.

Scaffolding Exercise

If you think it will be more useful to structure your group work, try this:

1. Get together as your group where there's at least one person who explored each Window.
   
   
2. Each person should share the 1 - 3 rules they made up.
   
   
3. After each person shares their rules, use the Relationship Wheel below to describe the relationship between your Window (globe, plants, etc.) and each path radiating out from it. For example How does the Planet relate to Plants, Animals, People, Cultures, and Language? A worksheet is available to complete this task.
   
   
4. Complete this for each corner of the Relationship Wheel. It will be clear that some Windows relate to each other very much. Others might surprise you and some won't seem to impact each other at all. Take your time and be creative and critical about the ideas you come up with.
   
   
5. Go back to the Big Question (How does all this Work?) and put as many ideas together as seem to fit. One "grand theory" will show deeper thinking than a lot of separate insights. Your WebQuest team should write out an answer that everyone on the team can live with.

Introduction   ·   The Big Question   ·   Windows on the World
Group Work   ·   Conclusion    ·   Scoring Rubric   ·   Teacher's Guide