Enrichment Activities

Students will select one of the following activities and continue it through the week. We will review projects this Thursday, April 9, 2020.

Journal / Sketchbook Journal: Students will write daily about their experiences regarding the pandemic. They should try to compare their experiences with the experiences of individuals during other times of crisis: 1918 Flu Pandemic, the Great Depression, World War One, World War Two, Black Plague, etc This may require a small amount of individual research about those times. Consider how the people tried deal with day-to-day living during the crisis, the ways they tried to solve the crisis, etc. When you write daily, have a central thought you want to focus on. But do not tie yourself to it strictly. Be creative. Use words and drawings, etc. It can be digital or physical.

Website: Create a website using wix.com or something similar. You may use this as a forum to track the virus, to create maps about the virus, compare the spread of the virus to that of the Black Plague or the 1918 Flu Pandemic, or other similar epidemics. Plot possible graphs regarding solutions to the pandemic (compare to older pandemics maybe). You may use this to create a pinboard and post images and facts about the locations you chose. You may use a Google Map (MyMaps) if you want.

Artwork: Create artwork using any kind of medium you want, showing any aspect of this pandemic and compare it to older pandemics.

Photojournalism: Create a series of images illustrating life during this pandemic. Be sure you include dates, times, locations, and descriptions of the images. This images could then be posted on a number of websites or you could create a website to share them.

Video: Similar to photojournalism. Create a video of life during the pandemic. You could also include imagery of the 1918 Flu Pandemic as a comparison. 

Traditional Paper: The length of the paper should be 2-3 pages. Be sure to include proper source citation. Compare this pandemic to the 1918 Flu Pandemic.

Other Projects: Some of you mentioned other possible projects to include PowerPoint and family trees. Those are fine ideas. If you do a PowerPoint presentation, be sure to make it is thorough as to this pandemic and compare it to the 1918 Flu Pandemic. Be sure to answer the interrogatives I always speak about: what, where, when, how, who, why.

If you want to work on a family tree project, focus on your family during the 1918 Flu Pandemic and now as well. You will need access to genealogy websites and probably newspaper websites that go back to the early 1900s.

The Next Normal: What opportunities are you seeing in the very near next normal? Is the Corona virus the "killer app" that will be the final tipping point to push current work, education, & healthcare to mainline telemedicine, distance education, & distant work? What does this say about "essential" businesses & work & the workers performing those jobs? Is essential in the short term the same as essential in the long term? How quickly will we be moving to automate those lower paid jobs & essential processes? How do we retrain those workers? Is this a generational challenge where the blue collar disappears? Compare this "new normal" to the normal that appeared after the 1918 Flu Pandemic and the Black Plague if possible. What were some of the outcomes of those pandemics, both positive and negative.