INVITATION

What is it like for emigrants to pull up roots from their homeland and move to a new country? How can we help young students understand the reasons for immigration? How can students use spreadsheets to accomplish a real-world task?

TASKS

Students imagine what it is like to emigrate from one's homeland. They choose a destination to immigrate to, brainstorm lists of items to travel with, estimate their weights, set priorities, and use the spreadsheet function of The Cruncher to trim their packing lists to 100 pounds or less; they also write stories of their travels, incorporating the items on their lists, and create maps of their destinations.

TOOLS

Computers; the Internet (optional); Sherlock (optional); iMovie (optional).

AppleWorks; The Cruncher; Mapmaker's Toolkit; Mighty Math Calculating Crew; World Book Encyclopedia.

Destination: Time Trip, USA (optional); a Web page editor, such as Adobe PageMill or Netscape Composer (optional); What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin? (optional).

Art supplies (optional); journals; scales.

INTERACTIONS

Students are introduced to the project as a class, and then work in pairs on their lists, estimations, and spreadsheets. In Phase 4, they work individually to research and write the stories of their travels. The teacher introduces the project and provides general guidance throughout.

<STANDARDS

To identify the curriculum standards for your state that correlate to this student project, select the state in the popup menu below and then click the Go button.

SITUATIONS

Students work in the classroom, but they may complete Phase 4 outside of class. Each of the phases requires one to several hours to complete, and Phases 2 and 3 are best done in sequence on the same day.

ASSESSMENT

A checklist can be used to review maps, initial packing lists, final packing lists, and spreadsheets. Criteria include whether the student has grasped the concept of estimation, constructed an effective spreadsheet, and adapted his or her list to reflect the conditions of the destination country.

Teachers can use a rubric to assess the quality of the final stories according to the student's creativity in choosing packing list items and the writer's understanding of the conditions in the destination country.

John F. Kennedy once wrote, "There were probably as many reasons for coming to America as there were people who came." The migration of people from all over the world has made America the country that it is today. Historians agree that three social forces motivated the mass migration to America over the past three centuries: religious freedom, economic opportunity, and political justice.

In this project, students imagine that they're about to immigrate to another country, and they have to decide what to pack. Each pair of travelers will be able to take items totaling 100 pounds. Students then write short stories to chronicle their travels.

Phase 1: Preparing for the journey

Begin by asking students to note in their journals what things or qualities they might look for in a new country they want to call home, and why they might want to go there. What type of weather do they like? Do they like a certain kind of food? Ask students to think carefully about what is important in a new home in preparation for their own journey.

Point out that many people today and in the past have left their homes to begin a new life in a new world. Start by reading a book such as Letters from Rifka with the class. In this book, a young girl tells the story of how she and her family fled their homeland to find a new home in America. Then have students review the history of immigration in World Book Encyclopedia by reading the articles "Immigration" and "Ellis Island." Students can also visit the Internet sites listed in the "Resources" section, later in this project, or use Sherlock to find other appropriate sites (see the "Searching With Sherlock 2" Step-by-Step Card for searching strategies). Ask students to look for reasons why people immigrated to new countries in the past and how they traveled. Students can predict what these immigrants might have brought with them. Exploring past immigration circumstances will help students begin thinking about what they need to pack for their journey and provide them with a context for the task ahead.

Working in pairs, students select a destination and think about how they would need to prepare to journey to that place. Students can research possible destination countries by searching for articles on the countries in World Book Encyclopedia; they can also visit some of the Web sites listed in the "Resources" section. After a pair selects a destination, they can gather information about it that will help them determine how to prepare for their journey.

Phase 2: Creating a packing list

With the whole class, create a list on the board of basic items that might be packed for the journeys. Agree on an estimate of the weight of each item to the nearest pound. For example, you might agree that a book weighs 1 pound and that a pair of pants and a shirt weigh 2 pounds.

Pairs then make a list of everything they can imagine taking for their own journey, keeping their destination in mind. The list should be divided into categories such as clothes, tools, food, household items (such as blankets or baskets), and favorite things (such as books or stuffed animals), and each item should include an estimated weight. Pairs will need to estimate the weights of items not on the basic list created by the class.

Encourage pairs to use their imaginations, but remain realistic, when they think of everything that they might need or want in their new country. Remind them to keep in mind that as a pair they may pack only 100 pounds. Ask pairs to think about what items they can share.

Phase 3: Crunching the numbers

After the lists are completed, pairs enter each item and its estimated weight into a spreadsheet created in The Cruncher. The spreadsheet should divide items into the same categories used in the list: clothes, tools, food, household items, and favorite things. The spreadsheet can be set up to create subtotals for each category, and to total the five categories.

After entering all the items on their list, each pair can delete and add items until they have a final list that totals 100 pounds or less. If they want, pairs can use the data in the spreadsheet to generate pie charts and bar graphs to use in Phase 4.

Phase 4: Telling the story

Now that the packing lists are complete, students work individually to write short stories about their journeys using AppleWorks. How do they travel? Who are they traveling with? What adventures happen to them on the way? Are they prepared? What other countries do they pass through? What is it like when they arrive at their destinations? Students can illustrate their stories using the AppleWorks painting tools or art supplies. Students can work with Mapmaker's Toolkit to create, illustrate, and print maps showing their journey, using the Step-by-Step Card "Starting With a Blank Map in Mapmaker's Toolkit," if necessary.

Stories and packing lists are then turned in to you, the Minister of Travel, and compiled as a class book of short stories for your classroom library.

Vocabulary: Categories, Destination, Immigration, Journey, Packing List.

Phase 3: Students may need to reconfigure their spreadsheets in The Cruncher several times before getting a list that is exactly 100 pounds or less. Rather than delete items entirely during this process, students can "store" removed items in a separate part of the spreadsheet so that they can be reinstated later if desired.

PREPARATION

Use Mighty Math Calculating Crew to strengthen students' understanding of how to find a missing addend to reach a target sum; see topics B and F in Nautical Number Line.

Bring in different items such as shoes, books, or a coat and scales for a "weights and measures" activity. You can also use these at the end of the activity to pack up a traveling kit and check the class's estimations.

Give students some practice estimating weights before or as a part of this activity. You can assist this part of the process by publishing an "estimation guide sheet." Suggest that the Ministry of Travel has established weights for certain items, such as 1 lb. for a book, 2 lbs. for a small radio, 5 lbs. for a sack of flour, and 10 lbs. for a computer. Items not included on the list can be compared with these. You can also provide scales for students to use in making their own estimates.

Make copies of any of the Step-by-Step Cards that students might need in carrying out the project tasks.

If students are new to The Cruncher, you can have them explore the first three tutorials that come with the program before they start the project; these tutorials should teach them everything necessary to set up and work with their spreadsheets.

Pairs can meet to review and revise their stories and their packing lists.

Two pairs may decide to travel together and share resources; each group will then create a joint spreadsheet with a 200 pound limit.

Students can create plays and short skits based on their stories. If you have digital cameras and iMovie software, students can film the plays or skits and create desktop movies. For help using iMovie, go to the Desktop Movies in Education Web site.

You can suggest that older students approach the project from an historical perspective. What items would they be taking if they were traveling from England to the American colonies in the 1600s, or if they were traveling westward along the Santa Fe Trail? What would an Irish person pack to escape from the potato famine of the 1850s? What would a person from China pack to bring to the U.S. to build railroads?

If students have approached the project historically (as described in the item above) they can create E-Books in Destination: Time Trip, USA to describe their lives as newly arrived immigrants in the United States in a certain historical period.

Students can make a Web site to create a "virtual field trip" of their journey to a new home. Pages can be arranged chronologically, with each one containing a part of the story of the journey and such items as the packing list and the map of the destination.

Students can use What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin? to learn about the journeys that Ben Franklin made to Europe. Students can imagine what Ben Franklin may have packed on his journey to France and create a packing list for it.

As a follow-up to the project, ask students to share their packing lists and stories with a family member. What different items might that person have chosen to take? Why? What are the choices that they agreed with?

BOOKS

Dragonwings by Laurence Yep

If Your Name was Changed at Ellis Island by Ellen Levine

In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord

Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse

A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Bulla

Sarah Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

The American Immigration Home Page
http://www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/Immigration/

CIA World Factbook
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

Geographia
http://www.geographia.com/

Library of Congress American Memory Project Port of Entry: Immigration
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/activity/port/start.html

MapQuest
http://www.mapquest.com

The National Park Service: Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island
http://www.nps.gov/stli/serv02.htm