Implementation of ‘Having Fun with Levi’ (SOI-PL-174)

I am a teacher-librarian and I implemented a learning scenario (for the first time) about jeans ‘Having Fun with Levi‘ created by Kristina Mijandrusic Ladavac. I chose this learning scenario as many people all over the world wear different kinds of jeans every day. For students, jeans are the favourite element of their daily school clothing. They do not think about jeans as an invention. I am not even sure if students know how jeans are produced and how they impact the environment. Thanks to this lesson scenario and Europeana, together with my students we discovered a lot about jeans, including their history and designing.

Let’s collaborate!            

This Story of Implementation was carried out in February 2020 with 13-year-old students. As a teacher-librarian, I am used to conducting interdisciplinary lessons. Therefore, I adapted the original learning scenario for the 7th-grade students having A2 level English skills and collaborated with an English teacher. We met during the two 45-minute lessons.

How did the implementation go?

Part 1

• In the first part of the lesson, I showed books, small exhibitions about jeans and the Europeana Collections prepared for the lesson. We made a warm-up game looking at the exhibitions and students tried to answer the following question: What are we talking about?

• Next, the students read Denim and jeans: making of a fashion icon found on the Europeana blog. This article was not very easy to read for the students having an A2 level in English, so they read it aloud together with the English teacher.

• Then, the students worked in groups on EdPuzzle. It was a video about the indigo plant and they answered questions while watching it. The movie made them think about how hard it is to achieve a high-quality product and success. The students needed to discuss the answer to the mentioned question.

• Lastly, the students created their own crossword puzzle choosing 5 or more words they wanted to focus on. It was work in pairs, too. Before they created it,  the teacher-librarian explained how to use the tools: puzzle-maker or whenwecrosswords. The students described their chosen words. They could use traditional and online dictionaries. I couldn’t print the crosswords during the lesson, so we saved them. It was homework for the next lesson.

Part 2

• During the second part of the lesson, students read articles about the ecological jeans technology, how jeans production impact the environment and an article about whether jeans are ecological. The aim was to encourage the students to think about shopping, saving water and protecting the environment.
• The final task was connected to the articles students read. The students designed their own product using jeans as recycled material (it was possible to design other inventions as well). They described, drew and created their products in their own ways.

Learning outcomes

The main learning outcomes I achieved with the implementation of the learning scenario are the students’ discussions about cultural heritage items like jeans with reflections and critical thinking. Other evidence that illustrates the benefits of this learning scenario is well-done cooperation and communication between the students. The learners were really enthusiastic and motivated when working with digital resources too. The students developed the following skills: language, ICT, collaboration and creativity. Therefore, I highly recommend other teachers to implement this learning scenario as well!

Teaching outcomes

What would I like to say to other educators teaching with Europeana resources? At first, I wasn’t optimistic about using Europeana resources in my lessons. Step by step, I studied the available digital resources on Europeana web portal and learning scenarios on the Teaching with Europeana blog. I became more enthusiastic reading very creative ideas provided by other teachers. By now, I have just completed the implementation of a very creative learning scenario combining English language skills, ICT, ecology, design and it was a very interesting and engaging experience!

Did you find this story of implementation interesting? Why don’t you read about the related learning scenario?

Having Fun with Levi by Kristina Mijandrusic Ladavac

Did you find this story of implementation interesting? You might also like:

• Who Are You? A Pen Pal from the Past implemented by Małgorzata Filip
• World Cafe Stories implemented by Despoina Kyriakaki
• The Power of Advertisements implemented by Theodora Tziampazi

CC BY 4.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Victoria and Albert Museum.