1. The Interactive Family Tree Project
The Interactive Family Tree Project
Driving Question: What Is the Origin of Our Cultural Diversity and How Does It Define or
Influence Our Existence in the Modern Day Multicultural Society?
Core Objectives
1. Enhance the students’ cultural awareness by encouraging them to dig deeper into their
cultural heritage and explore their origin through the interactive family tree.
2. Enable the students to acknowledge and accept the ethnicity and cultural heritage of their
fellow students and anyone else that they interact with now and in the future (Kumagai,
& Lypson, 2009).
3. Prepare the students to live, study, and work in a multicultural environment by teaching
them to appreciate and even celebrate the unique cultural heritage that everyone holds.
4. Equip the students with knowledge on how society has evolved to embrace
multiculturalism, from the era of slavery and racism till now, through the accounts of
their parents and grandparents.
Learning Skills
1.Multicultural awareness: This project will assess the multicultural awareness level of
students by subjecting them to an environment where they learn about each others’
ethnicities and cultural heritage.
2.Oral communication: Extensive consultations with parents, grandparents, and other
family members will be required to complete this project. This will help the students
improve their oral communication skills. They will also get to interact together with one
another when creating and presenting the interactive family tree project.
3. Collaboration: Learning how to establish collaborations is an important skill that
students must master. This interacting project will help them improve on this vital skill as
they will work together with multiple parties to successfully complete it.
4. Practice presentations: The project will also offer the students a perfect opportunity or
platform to practice their presentation skills in class.
5. Self and peer-evaluation skills: In the project, the students will conduct a lot of self
evaluation to identify their beliefs when it comes to their cultural heritage or ethnicity and
how it influences the manner in which they live their lives. Likewise, they will get to
evaluate their fellow students from a cultural lens which will, in turn, create more
awareness about multiculturalism.
Technology Skills
1. Integration of technology in learning: The interactive element of this project will require
students to use technology to document the information provided to them by their family
members about their cultural heritage (Renes, & Strange, 2011). They will then use their
technical skills to create an interactive family tree that will be presented in class.
2. Use of technology to communicate ideas: The project will encourage the students to use any
technology of their choice to communicate their family trees to the classroom.
Performance Objectives
The students must know what cultural heritage is and be able to define the term
multiculturalism. This will provide them with the foundational knowledge of what the project
will be about and the type of information that they should seek from their family members before
creating an interactive family tree. The students must also know how to use a variety of
technological tools such as digital cameras or smartphones to record their conversations or
interviews with family members or fellow students. In addition to this, they must identify the
appropriate presentation tools to use when creating interactive family trees. Examples include
Microsoft PowerPoint, Prezi Online Presentation Tool, and many more.
Activity 1: Collecting Information on Their Cultural Heritage From Family Members
This activity is quite straightforward as all the students will be required to do is to collect the
information about their cultural heritage from their family members. They will be briefed that
they will, later on, use this information to create an interactive family tree that details their
cultural heritage and present it in class. However, the type of information that they request, the
quantity, and even the source that they utilize will be up to them. The students will also be
informed that they will use this information to determine how it influences their existence in the
modern day multicultural society. With this guidance, it will be up to the students to establish a
plan for collecting the information and a medium for capturing it to be used in the interactive
family tree.
Activity 2: Creating the Interactive Family Tree Presentation
The next step for the students after gathering all of the information about their cultural heritage
from their family members in the format or their liking is to create an interactive family tree
presentation. The goal of this activity will be to allow the students to exercise their imagination
and creativity while putting together an interactive presentation that will showcase their findings
from the first activity. It will also grant them an opportunity to explore how different forms of
technology can be integrated into the learning process to achieve a specific goal. One key point
to note in this activity is that the students will be tasked with the responsibility of selecting an
appropriate technological tool to create the interactive family tree. They will have to conduct
extensive research to identify which tool will serve their interests better. It will be a very
intensive learning experience that will encompass a variety of skills.
Activity 3: Presenting the Interactive Family Tree in the Classroom
The final step will be for all students to present their interactive family trees in class. Here, there
will be two main goals. The first one is to assess the manner in which the students performed the
assigned tasks in the project. Those that prepared well and extensively researched the project will
undeniably perform better in their presentations. In addition to this, the presentations will
provide the teacher with an accurate assessment of the level of skills that each student possesses
in all of the learning and technological areas mentioned earlier. The second goal will be to
establish cultural awareness. It is during this interactive session that the students will get to learn
more about each others’ cultural heritages and ethnicities. The teacher will request them to share
how the experience has impacted their knowledge of multiculturalism. Moreover, they will be
asked to clearly stipulate how their cultural heritage defines or influences their behaviors or
mannerisms in class and even at home when interacting with other people.
Materials Needed
Activity 1:
1. Video recording device, such as a digital camera, smartphone, or even a tablet.
2. Writing materials to record notes.
Activity 2:
1. Computer with internet connection.
2. Presentation software, such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Prezi.
3. Tutorials on how to create presentations which can be found online.
Activity 3:
1. Projector in the classroom.
2. Students’ computers with the prepared presentations.
3. Writing materials to record notes.
Resources
The Resources Vary From Student to Student. However, at the Bare Minimum, a Student Must
Have;
1. A computer with a reliable internet connection to aid in further research from online
sources about their ethnicity and any other relevant issue that may be included in their
interactive family trees.
2. An interview with a family member that is recorded and incorporated into the interactive
family tree presentation.
Project Evaluation
The project will be evaluated by assessing whether the students have gained cultural awareness.
An analysis will also be conducted by the educator to establish the level of learning and
technological skills employed to create the interactive family trees by all students in this project.