Susan McLaughlin
Elementary School Teacher
Longmont, Colorado
89009

Audience: Sixth grade students

Purpose: Have sixth grade students create a law-related lesson to teach to primary grade students.

Procedures:

This project involves a pilot group of sixth grade students from one elementary school who work on special individual projects dealing with law-related education. It requires talking with the principal of the school. First, the project is explained to the class. After students volunteer, letters are sent to the parents of the students, explaining the project and asking permission for their students to participate. After permission has been obtained you meet with the students as a group to discuss their projects and present ideas. Some suggestions for projects as are follows:

• Students choose and read a book about a law-related topic and prepare a lesson using the book. The lesson would be presented to students in the primary grades.
• Students could prepare a lesson on a law-related topic such as stealing, vandalism, or shoplifting. Materials would be studentmade, possibly using audio-visual materials.
• Students could do a presentation to their own classmates and other sixth graders on either a law-related topic or a person working in the legal field such as a judge or a lawyer. They could take slides, orally record comments, or develop other ways of sharing their information with other students.
• After the initial meeting with the students, meet with them again about a week later to brainstorm the various project ideas. Students will be encouraged to contribute their ideas for other students' projects.
• After students have chosen a project, meet with them individually or in a group to help them do research in the library, order audio-visual items or arrange visits to places or to see people. Some of these activities will have to be done after school or on Saturdays (thus the need for parental permission). Students are given various target dates for completion of their projects depending upon their complexity and any other time constraints which they may have.

The project used ""Donald Duck's Crime," a 16 mm film from Walt Disney Educational Media Company, as a stimulus to have students create lessons. The lessons included questions, role plays, word searches and crossword puzzles. Other films, filmstrips, books with law-related themes could be used.

Summary:

There are several positive results of this individualized peer teaching project. It encourages creativity in students. It puts students in the role of teaching law-related concepts. It allows for the use of a variety of social studies and language arts curriculum materials.