What comes to mind when you hear the words “famous monument”? The Statue of Liberty? The Eiffel Tower? The Empire State Building? Big Ben? Or do you think of monuments left behind by ancient civilizations, such as Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, the Colosseum or the Great Pyramid of Giza? Although many of us are fascinated by these structures, few of us realize that they are more than just tourist attractions! Over the past few weeks grade 7s have been learning about monuments that were spiritually significant for ancient civilizations. In our research, we discovered that Delphi was an important Greek religious sanctuary sacred to the god Apollo, the ziggurat was part of the religious architecture found at the centre of Mesopotamian settlements, and the pyramids were built to prepare pharaohs for the afterlife. These monuments still exist today even though they are over 2000 years old! After learning about the religious significance of these monuments, we then used our creative thinking to build and then share our 3-D models. Canada has a long tradition of welcoming refugees and in recent years we have welcomed over 40,000 Syrian refugees into our country. After reading a recent non-fiction article, we were surprised to find out that refugees also cross the border illegally and seek asylum. Some even risk their life as they trudge through snow and cross the border into Canada. Who knew? Many of those seeking asylum are from the Middle East or from Latin America and are worried about the changing political climate in the United States. While reading the article, we learned about the Safe Third Country Agreement and the strain on border towns that don’t have resources to support refugees. Should we take people from the US when they’re not facing the same challenges as people in Syria, the Middle East or Africa? That’s a tough question that required us to think from different perspectives. We needed to fairly look at both sides while completing a yes and no chart and then we used that information to form our own opinion. We’ll be sharing those opinions next week in a class debate on this very issue. It was busy week preparing for our grade 7 farewell assembly! Here's what we were up to:
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March 2020
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