It's hard to explain what transpired over the course of the last few months in my classroom.... there were implications that I had not envisioned for my self, my students, or my beliefs about teaching.

Typically, when a project or unit extends longer than six weeks, both my students and myself lose at least part of our motivation. Either the concept gets lost, the teachable moments fade away, the students lose engagement.... something almost always gets sacrificed.

However, I have to say, with the utmost honesty, this unit kept running at full speed from September through January - even extending over winter break.

The concept was fresh each week: how do you relate to yourself and others, how do we as a people relate to the earth? Every task the students completed was for a specific purpose, and my fourth graders followed this without the constant need for redirection.

The installation unit itself kept getting larger and larger as well, as I began to realize the implications it carried for each discipline: art, science, social studies, math, music/motion, language arts, technology... Each week became something new, more than just a continuation of the previous week's learning - it became something to anticipate. For example, my students discussed recycling and using unconventional materials to create, they critiqued various meanings behind the same artworks, they analyzed history, ecology, and the dynamic relationships of people. They discovered where mazes came from and how to make them - small and large. The knowledge here transpired from segmented learning into something bigger that us all. It transformed us into private and public thinkers, citizens of the Information Era, if you will.