5/6 Duffy

Grade Six Social Studies Project:

Country and Culture

Culture is rich and is a mix of attitudes, customs and beliefs. Culture changes from one group of people to another. It is passed on from one generation to the next through language, objects, rituals, and art. Culture belongs to all of us. We know about our own culture but we may not know about other cultures, so we need to study them constantly.
Our world is made up of a kaleidoscope of many countries' traditions. We should learn all that we can from each other. Now with the internet and other technologies, this type of learning can be simpler, faster and fun.

(From:

Project Guidelines:

1. With your partner(s), choose a country outside North America do an in depth typed report.

2. Present the project to the class.

3. The report must have a Table of Contents, and a Bibliography. The rest of the format is up to you and your partner(s). You might choose a well-organized bristol board presentation with photos and notes, a PowerPoint (please print it for submission even though you would present it to the class in the PowerPoint format), a booklet, pamphlets…whatever you think will best illustrate your hard work and maintain the interest of your audience as you present.

4. This project is due ______.

5. The report should include both country and culture details of your chosen country, as well as a personal reflection from each group member after the project is completed. You may choose to work together consistently or break the project into parts and come together once you have obtained all the information to put together a cohesive (united) project.

***You must fill out the Culture Report Forms as you obtain cultural information about your country. These are to be passed in when your project is due. Only the person(s) who located the information are to put their names on top of the form. This will make the bibliography so much easier to do.

COUNTRY DETAILS: Choose from these details what you think is important to reflect in your culture project. You are not required to report on all of these country details.

5/6 Duffy

  • Area/size of your country
  • Capital city
  • Largest cities
  • Population
  • Languages
  • Borders – North, South, East, West
  • Continent
  • Climate
  • Transportation
  • Flag
  • Landmarks
  • Land details (desert, flat, mountainous, hilly)
  • Maps – have visuals to share and that the class can explore and learn from
  • Interesting facts

5/6 Duffy

CULTURE DETAILS:

As we have already discussed in class, there are several strands to consider when examining the culture of a group. The major ideas are its:

  • Economy – Currency (maybe include photos here); how do people make money, and is money important in this culture?
  • Politics - Type of Government that rules over the residents, Rights & Freedoms that may differ from North American culture (election process, for example)
  • Education – Is education similar to or different from the system we have here in Canada? Find out as much as you can about the system your country uses. Based on what you can find out, is education less, more, or equally important as here?
  • Arts - Holidays and festivals, traditions, food, dress, entertainment, literature, music, sports, popular entertainers etc. Feel free to bring in artwork, food, clothing, songs etc.!
  • Kinship – Family structure: how are families blended? Nuclear (mom, dad, siblings only live in the home) or Extended (grandparents, cousins and others live in the home too) or Communal (many people living in one home). Gender issues: are women/girls and men/boys given the same respect? Do family members relate to each other in ways that may be different that we are used to? Children: Are children treated similarly to the way they are here in Canada? Is there more or less respect of children? Is childhood as long as it is here or do children grow up faster and have more responsibility sooner?
  • Religions – most common religion(s) of the country, how religious beliefs relate to their culture. For example, here in Canada, the issue of Sunday Shopping is hotly debated because many religions believe that Sunday is a Holy day intended for worship. Also, in some religions, people fast (go without eating anything) during daylight hours for up to a month to show worship. Can you find any interesting religious beliefs and traditions in the country you are exploring?

This assignment requires you toobtain information regarding each cultural strand. If you are unable to find reliable information on a strand, ask an adult or peer to help you and/or see the teacher for support.

PERSONAL REFLECTION

After this project is completed, I will be asking you to jot down your thoughts of it, in general. I will be looking for what you thought of the project overall and WHY. This will help me to understand what is working well and how I might change the project in the future. Please keep this is mind as you work through this assignment.

PRESENTATION

Most importantly, be creative in your presentation! There is a lot of work in this project – get your monies worth by really entertaining the audience! Once the work is completed, assign each group member certain aspects of the information to report to the class... Though you will be presenting together, each group member must have certain parts for which they are responsible to present.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

***Do not solely rely on the internet for research…books are valid resources too!

Books: You will be provided opportunity to go through books at school for your research. I would also encourage you to go to the public library and take out books on the country of your choice. When putting into the bibliography, include the Author Name (last, first), Title (Underlined), City of Publication, Publisher and Date of publication.

Book Example: Cohen, Daniel. America's Very Own Ghosts. New York: Doubleday, 1985.

Internet: As far as the internet goes, remember that it is a wonderful resource but there are as many unreliable websites out there as reliable ones. If you are unsure as to whether a website is reliable, ask a parent or teacher for help.

When recording internet websites, make sure to write the entire website address. Others can’t find the website you were looking at if all you tellthemis that it came from

Internet Example:

A few of the many good websites for your project:

***Remember, though, that since you will have to search further for details within these websites, these addresses are not appropriately written for a bibliography.

Have a question and just can’t find the answer??? Try

You can ask an ‘expert’ questions about your country and they will email you a response. Do it early in the project in case the response takes a few days. Use this only as a last resort!

5/6 Duffy

Name(s): ______Date: ______

Cultural Notes Form

Country/culture of study: ______

Circle the topic:

Country info Arts Economy Education Government Kinship Religions

**Where this information came from (internet – include address; encyclopedia – include name, volume, and page number; book – include title, author, publisher, city of publication and date)

______

______

______

The information found:

______

______

______

______

______

______

______

______

______
______

______

______

______