Travels with Tauttuit

I. Briefly review the project form. Discuss the project theme, outline and time line; review the project and curriculum objectives.

Project Overview:

Grade 3/4 students gathered and compiled information about their hometown of Trout River, Gros Morne National Park and the West Coast of Newfoundland. This information was then compiled into a package that emphasized the 1999 Canada Winter Games. Also included in the package sent to other provinces was Tauttuit, the 1999 Winter Games Mascot. Students wrote daily entries into a journal; they wrote about themselves and their community. The journal and information gathered was forwarded to a school in another province and the school was asked to respond in journal format. The other schools were asked to share any information about their part of the country. As a class, we maintained and continually updated the web page with information returned to us from other schools.

Project Objectives:

1. Students will share their culture and heritage with other students across Canada.
2. Students will learn about other parts of the country through journal entries and information exchanged between school and provinces.
3. Students will use computer technology to create a web page, use a digital camera to take photos, and use a scanner to share images with other schools through a student created web page.

II. Show the audience the outcome of the project proposal.

Results and a tour of the project can be seen at: http://www.k12.nf.ca/jakeman/travel/tauttuit.html

III. Briefly comment on any successes or problems that were encountered throughout the life of the project.

The greatest success that I can say came from this project occured when a child in my class said, "Sir they are no different than we are. They like the same music, movies and TV shows." This project allowed my class to see that people who live in Brandon are really no different than kids in Trout River Newfoundland. The project was an eye-opener for the kids in my class. There were no real problems encountered while doing this project, other than that there was not enough time to complete the project.

IV. Comment on any aspects of the project that you would do differently.

Perhaps the biggest thing that I would change would be to try and make more contact with teachers in other provinces to increase involvement; I would make more use of the SchoolNet web page to make contact with these teachers. The biggest challenge in this whole project was getting other teachers to take part in the project.

V. Comment on if and how the project can be expanded next year.

I would like to continue this project. Since it focused on the Canada Winter Games mascot, another mascot would need to be used instead. Although the same idea would be continued in a project with a new mascot.