The last step is to create a presentation for a committee of state legislators to persuade them that your plan for a new holiday should be adopted. The role of the committee will be played by a group of teachers and students from our class.
- Generate ideas for your design. Remember that when brainstorming, all ideas are accepted and recorded. Model your ideas after the holidays you researched in Phase 1 and be sure you incorporate the qualities of your explorer you identified in Phase 2.
- Create a list of criteria for evaluating your ideas. Consider that you must persuade the committee, so base your criteria around what you think will be most convincing to the most people. Some criteria you might consider:
- Does it honor the explorer in a way to make people want to learn more about him?
- Does it involve many people of many different ages and cultures?
- How easy is it to plan and organize the celebration?
- What will it cost in time and money to put the celebration on?
- Can the celebration be held in many different locations?
- Are there many different options for celebrating (e.g. games, fairs, parades, days off, community service, etc.)?
- Use your criteria to narrow your list of ideas to a few that you believe will be the best way to honor your explorer.
- Design your holiday celebration.
- Develop your presentation. Be sure to follow all of these requirements:
- The oral presentation must involve all members of the group
- It must last between 5 and 10 minutes
- You must make a persuasive argument for both your selection of explorer and your design of the celebration
- You must incorporate some technology into your presentation. This could include word processing, a graph made with Excel, a PowerPoint slide show, using Inspiration to create your visual , etc.
- Your presentation must have one visual. This could be a map, picture of the explorer, poster, chart, PowerPoint, etc.
- At the time you give your presentation, you must turn in a folder to the teacher that includes all of the following items:
- A written outline of your presentation
- Data charts from Phase 1 and Phase 2
- Group notes and brainstorming from Phase 3
- Bibliography list or cards including all sources used during your research
- A map showing the explorer’s voyages
