Pseudo-Sushi: What's on my Plate?
In this collaborative, cross discipline project, students practiced citizen science through investigating seafood fraud and seafood mislabeling in San Diego. Spoiler alert! Almost all of the seafood they sampled was, indeed, mislabeled. Through analyzing the results of DNA barcoding, claim evidence reasoning writing, creating detailed models, and curation of professional scientific posters, students presented their findings to an authentic audience at the Cabrillo National Monument Visitor's Center. Check out the project handout above to learn more!
Project Identity
We moved to distance learning shortly after launching Project Identity, and as my mentor teacher and I scrambled to redesign our classroom and make sure students had their basic needs met, project work naturally had to be put on hold. We grieved over letting go of our expectations for a while, and then set to work redesigning Project Identity: Distance Learning Edition. This version of the project offers students a choice in what their final product will look like, based on materials they have at home and their unique talents and skills they choose to capitalize on. After crafting a thesis statement inspired by research on how people with different social identities experience daily life differently in the United States, students proposed a final product and schedule responding to the question: How will you use the resources you have available right now to prove your thesis statement to the world? Final product choices include essays, stories, songs, paintings, dioramas, films, and more, and for each product we created a customized road-map to guide students through their processes. Click on the project handout above to learn more!

For our project launch, students worked to determine what they thought were the "most important" events in U.S. history. Julie and I displayed those events on a timeline along with lesser known events that reflect the histories of marginalized groups. While students completed a gallery walk to view the events, we asked them to think about why some events showed up in their research, while others didn't.