Implementation of ‘Femeile secolului XX și realizările lor’ (SOI-RO-571)
Author: Cristina Elena Voicu, Teacher of history & geography
Organization/School: Școala Gimnazială Nr. 1 Hulubești
Introduction
The activity was implemented for 8th grade Students (14-15 years old) as interdisciplinarity activity (history, social studies, art, counseling and professional guidance, ICT). Number of students – 19 (8 girls, 11 boys). The number of hours needed
– 30 minutes for preparation (creating student’s groups, tasks for each group, useful links/websites for searching information, including Europeana);
– 50 minute for research information, organization of the information’s, ICT tools selection);
-30 minutes for create an Padlet (students uploaded photos, videos, presentation);
Europeana resources – https://www.europeana.eu/ro/exhibitions/pioneers/maria-sklodowska-curie
I used the QR code reader for the resource below
Learning process
The Learning Scenario I used for my lesson was good, very useful for my activity at 8Th graders because they needed to know more about the women career during history and have some role models in their lives. The activity took 2-3 hours in total. Some of the videos and useful material was studied by my students on their own time (they were taking notes, gathered materials needed). For draw their attention on the topic I used additional resources – 4 Women Who Changed Scientific History in the 20th Century – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnRqXDuiKLo
100 Famous Women of the 20th Century – https://www.thoughtco.com/famous-women-of-the-20th-century-1779903
The context of the learning scenario – history curriculum – „Romania between XX-XXI century”. We talk about the major role of the Queen Mary of Romania (Ferdinand 1sth of Romania) in constitution of Great Romania. The queen was nurse on the battlefield, she held talks with the politician of the time to act in the interest of the country, she intervened at the president of the U.S.A., Woodrow Wilson, for Romania to be recognized as an important part in the war.
The portrait of Queen Mary, as it remained in history, is strongly distorted, because its essence has been lost. Many of the archival images show a diaphanous queen, poet, with the soul of an artist, dressed mostly in white, in Romanian folk costume or in the white uniform of a Red Cross nurse. Her bravery is mentioned only for the fact that during the First World War, she worked directly on the front, in field hospitals, and coordinated the activity of a charity foundation, being popularly called the “mother of the wounded” and the “soldier queen”. But the diplomatic negotiation part, at the highest level, is almost not mentioned, although there are many documents that attest to it.
Starting from there, I propose to my students a project about the role of women in world history.
I show them the Europeana Collection and invite them to search for women of XX century and their achievements. I use a dice to create groups.
In groups, my students worked for two weeks at this project.
They choose their female character and work together to present her biography, her accomplishments, do research activity on the subject on Europeana blog and on the other sources indicated by me.
Teamwork – Students look for information about successful women of the 20th century, in areas of interest – economics, medicine, chemistry, etc. to compare and scientifically analyze this information with the process. – After ordering the information, create the scientific profile of the character: they must create a situation, demonstrating that the scientific idea is still valid today and how we can use it in the new socio-economic contexts.
Teamwork – Each team will have to analyze the arguments of the other teams regarding the personality allegation, give and receive feedback to improve their work product.
For the presentation – Each team must present the product of the activity in front of their colleagues, discussing, reflecting, and analyzing the discoveries made.
The learning scenario was implemented easily in my classroom and fit perfectly in the history curriculum, but also in social studies lessons and art lesson.
Outcomes
The main achievement of the implementation of this learning scenario – students understand the major role of women in our history, our society in different areas of knowledge. I am more aware of the resources we can find on the Europeana website. I intend to use more those resources in my history, social studies, and art lesson.
Students done deep research in Europeana Collection; they have now better understanding on copyrights.
During the product presentation my students develop their communication skills, critical thinking (asking reflective questions). I also used the evaluation grid found in the learning scenario. It is very useful to evaluate students’ XXI competences.
I was amazed by the useful resources and creative lesson plan developed by teachers across Europe and the opportunity to share ideas and learn from each other.
Link to the learning scenario implemented: Femeile secolului XX și realizările lor.
Do you want to discover more stories of implementation? Click here.
PDM 1.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology.