One of the hallmarks of an MICDS education is our Project-Based Learning (PBL) program where all grades have multiple opportunities each year to collaborate and execute various projects. Students work in small groups to research a specific topic and then build a summary, presentation, and visual aid to communicate information about their topic. They tap into collaboration skills, feedback, and reflection loops for a more in-depth learning process. In addition, it’s an introduction to the complex mechanics of working on long-term projects where they build skills in goal setting, organization, leadership, decision-making, teamwork, creativity, compromise, and more.
Our second graders in the classrooms of Lower School Teachers Nicole Skaggs and Laura Miller recently launched a project on historic Missourians. To amplify the experience, Upper Schoolers assisted the younger students in two critical parts of the journey: research and presentation.
After choosing their historical figure, second graders explored essential facts about that person on the Historic Missourians area of the Missouri Historical Society website. Then Upper School students joined a class period to help them research information and distill important notes about their chosen figure.
JK-12 History Department Chair Carla Federman said, “Since our Upper School students all take a History of St. Louis course during their junior year, this Lower School project was the perfect opportunity to get our juniors and seniors involved. Watching the students interact and work together across grade levels and get excited about their topics was great fun to watch. Our second graders were able to learn about research and notetaking from the expertise of our Upper Schoolers, and I feel pretty confident that our Upper Schoolers learned a few things about important St. Louisans from the younger students, too!”
After initially meeting with the Upper Schoolers and working on their notetaking, the second-grade students collaborated in small groups for a few weeks, honing their research and designing ways to memorialize or honor their historical figure that was informative, interactive, and creative. They also worked to understand the essential components of a successful presentation, created blueprints for their final memorial pieces, and practiced their presentation skills. Then it was time for the Upper School students to return to the second-grade classroom, serve as an audience, and ask questions about the historical figure. They rotated through the groups and appreciated the younger students’ enthusiasm as they presented their project blueprints.
The feedback from students was overwhelmingly rewarding. Shivani Devrapally ’24 had fun with the experience. “It’s so interesting to see how they look at the world and see all these different people from the past. Their presentations were so interesting in how they wanted to construct monuments for their historical figures. One of them wants to build their own headband with light-up buttons, and someone else wants to build a building about their figure,” she said.
Esha Singh ’24 echoed the enjoyment of a new perspective. She said, “I loved seeing things from their little-kid perspective because I miss being that age. I loved seeing how they used colors and information to construct their ideas—like the rocket ship. We don’t get to do that as much in the Upper School, so seeing it was a lot of fun, and I would totally do it again!”
“It was so fun being with the kids. We learned about these historical figures last semester in our History of St. Louis class, and seeing the way the younger students take in the same information was interesting. Their creativity really showed. They were so nice and hugged us when we returned,” shared Rebecca Sennaraj ’24.
Ella Brauer ’24 appreciated the opportunity to build community. She said, “The person that our group worked on was James Buchanan Eads, who built the Eads Bridge, and he also built battleships which I learned about in our St. Louis History class. But when the second graders taught it, it was cute and a lot more interesting to watch them work together on the presentation, with their primary focus being on the battleships. Working with the second graders was fun, and I enjoyed getting to know them and bridging that gap to build community between the Lower and Upper School students.”
Congratulations to our second graders on completing this investigative and long-term fun project!