Home Is Where The Heart Is

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I created a google map for 3rd grade students who live in the Detroit area. This google map focuses on social studies content, specifically about Michigan's history and culture. I think it is important for students to learn about the important places of their hometown, as well as the surrounding areas, in order to grasp a better understanding of the history and culture of Michigan. In order to meet a variety of students' interests and needs, I decided to incorporate Comerica Park, the Detroit Zoo, Museum of African American History, Fox Theater, Henry Ford Museum, and the Detroit Institute of Arts. That way, students learn how to open their minds to new places and things by accepting diversity through leisure activities, popular culture, people of different races, ethnicities, and backgrounds, animals and the different environments they live in, as well seeing how and why Detroit is known as the automotive industry. In a social studies lesson, I would ask the students to explore the places on the map, and then ask them to write a short personal narrative on how at least 2 of those places have affected their lives in some way. I think I could also take field trips to these places, and then have the students write responses afterwards, explaining what they learned how it is an aspect of Michigan's history or culture.