Grade 2s Create DiverCity!

November 19, 2021

Academics

GNS

Our Grade 2 classes have completed their latest IB PYP Unit of Inquiry into “Who We Are” where they examined the central idea of “A community is shaped by the diversity of its people.” In doing so, Mrs. Wild and Mrs. Newman’s classes looked into types of diversity, how diversity impacts a community, different attitudes towards diversity, and the rights and responsibilities in different communities.

For their summative, students were asked to pretend they were bringing their family over from another country. Then, they had to come up with ways that they would meet the different needs of their families. The types of diversity the students considered were cultural, physical, age and economic.

Together, the classes created their own physical DiverCity, where they added different components that they thought would be needed to make the whole community inclusive. The resulting city, which was handmade by the students in the new Innovation Lab, incorporated a variety of things that they thought would meet the needs for their unique family.

A fabric store, a playground for people with physical disabilities, a dog house for stray dogs, a clothing factory and store, a high school, a junior school beehives, three different pools, houses, farms, daycares, hospitals, a crib manufacture centre, a school for Braille, ramps, colleges and universities, gyms, a soccer/football stadium, an airplane school, community centres, water fountains, and a soup kitchen were are included in the DiverCity. Students even included an airport so that there was access for more families to come to the city, or to allow families to travel.

“It’s important to have all these diverse things in the city so everyone can have what they need,” said Lilian.

What a great job the Grade 2 classes did in showcasing their cumulative learning and finding an easy way to make a community diverse and inclusive for everyone.