Culture Grams

Welcome to a Trip around the World! Tool Kit: Culture Grams Culture grams is an on-line data base that was established in 1974. Five years ago it was acquired by Proquest and was given a complete “overhaul”. The aim of Culture Grams is to foster an understanding and appreciation of the world’s countries. It does this by breaking its information up into four organized researchable divisions. 1. World Edition: Students can access information from various countries in the world via a continent search or direct country name search. Once a country is selected, the student is linked to its “Culture Grams” home page which features information written by natives of the country and a Culture Grams editor. The World Edition holds texts for 202 countries including the192 members of the United Nations and foreign dependencies. It is updated annually, and all stats come from UN reports and CIA fact books. On each World Edition Culture Grams page, students may navigate using a tool bar or picture icons to obtain information such as flag outlines, video clips, slide shows, photo galleries, recipes, famous people, graphs, national anthem, language lessons, time comparisons with country, interactive mapping of travel distances to the country, currency, and historical/ political/ economical/and cultural categories of information. 2. Kids Edition: The Kids Edition has all of the same information listed above, but the text is written at a mid to upper elementary level. 3. United States Kids Edition: Holds information for the 50 states and Washington D.C. 4. Canada Kids Edition: Holds information for the 13 provinces and territories Overall, this is an amazing tool. It appeals to the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learner. It pulls in the reluctant reader, gives current and credible information to the researcher, and allows for unlimited school-wide connections when considering curriculum coverage, multi-cultural awareness, and state standards.

Lesson Plan Background: Since our middle school works on teams, social studies is always the “shared” subject. Therefore, every teacher on the team always has at least one subject of it to teach. This translates into every core teacher in the building being a social studies teacher, and no one teacher in the building being a social studies specialist. In addition, most of the people teaching it did not major in any type of social studies degree, however they are “highly qualified” enough to teach one section of it. Since this subject is not anyone’s “main” focus, social studies tools and additional resources sometimes go un-

used. In addition, information and comparisons with our country and the world that we live in can work into any curriculum: music, foods, art, PE, science, math, language arts Purpose: to introduce the Culture Grams tool kit to the staff in a hands-on activity that will encourage its use and get staff thinking about its application to their curriculum Location: during one of our building’s SIP (School Improvement Planning in-service days), the library would be one stop for staff as they rotated through their attendance sessions. Activities: 1. Introduction of Tool Kit/brief summary and overview by librarian 2. Information on how the database can be accessed both at home and at school 3. Quick overview on the four modes of organized information. 4. Librarian demo of sample country/ available facets of information by looking at one specific country –modeling the navigation of the tool kit 5. Practice: staff will move to a computer in the library and log onto the Culture Grams homepage. 6. Staff will complete a database scavenger hunt located at each station that will acclimate them with the various components of the tool kit. 7. Upon completion of the scavenger hunt, staff will turn completed scavenger hunt into the librarian for a prize. 8. Librarian will give the staff member a specialized sheet that aligns with their respective teaching curriculum units and suggestions for how Culture Grams might be used or incorporated to enhance the topic of study. 9. Teachers will complete an exit slip in which they will journal about three questions: • List something that you learned today: • When could you use Culture Grams to support and enrich something that you are teaching? • What else do you need from me to actively integrate Culture Grams somewhere into your curriculum?