Beyond Demographics
Print this Page- Subject(s): Social Studies & Geography
- Region / Country: Latin America & the Caribbean / Dominican Republic
- Grade Level(s): 6–8, 9–12
- Related Publication: Insights From the Field
Overview
Students will learn more about the Dominican Republic through watching and discussing a video about the country and its people.
Objectives
- Students will be able to explain life in the Dominican Republic.
- Students will describe the emerging picture of the Dominican Republic as viewed through multiple data sources (the video, demographic data, maps, and direct observations of Peace Corps Volunteers).
- Students will examine the essential question How is our picture of a country dependent upon the sources we use to investigate it?
Materials
Worksheets
Procedures
- Explain to students that this lesson will focus on these essential questions:
- How is our picture of a country dependent on the sources we use to investigate it?
- How does using a variety of information sources help us gain a more complete picture of a place and its people?
- No matter where we may live, how are we all connected with each other and the world?
- Remind students that we've been talking about how where you live influences how you live. We've formed a general impression of the Dominican Republic through maps and demographics. We've read Peace Corps Volunteers' statements about the geography, climate, location, and communities they live in. Each source of data gives us a part of the picture.
Ask students to form pairs and respond to the following questions:- What did you learn about the Dominican Republic from the quotes of Peace Corps Volunteers?
- How was this different from what you learned from analyzing demographic data?
- Once students have had a chance to respond to these questions, ask them where they would go to get the kind of information that would let them get a sense of what the Dominican Republic really looks like—a sense of the faces, sounds, lives of the people, especially those their age. Hold a brief class discussion. Answers might include: take a trip, ask a friend, look at photos, watch a video.
- Inform students that shortly they will be seeing a Peace Corps video about the Dominican Republic and its people. The video will "put a face on a place" because places are more than geographic features and demographic numbers.
- Before showing the video, ask students to imagine again that they are in one of the following scenarios presented earlier:
- They just learned that their family is moving to the Dominican Republic.
- They are going to participate in a student exchange program and live in the Dominican Republic for a summer or a semester.
- They are about to graduate from college and begin their first job working for an international business that is sending them to work in the Dominican Republic.
- Ask students what more they would need to know about the Dominican Republic before going there. Write student responses on the board.
- After a brief class discussion, inform students that they will be viewing three different locations in the Dominican Republic: a small city, Hato Mayor; a town, Los Toros; and a small village, El Jamo.
- Provide students with a copy of the Video Matrix.
- Review the matrix with students. Let them know that, as they view each location, you will give them time to fill in the appropriate boxes in the matrix. Let them know that there may not be answers to each and every category listed, and it is all right to leave a box blank. Depending on the age and ability level of students, review the vocabulary and meaning of phrases.
- To help students process the information in the video, you may wish to show it in three segments. The first segment focuses on life in the city of Hato Mayor. The second focuses on Los Toros, and the third on El Jamo. After viewing each segment, stop the video and ask students to work in small groups to complete the column of the matrix that deals with the location shown.
- Before students view the first segment of the video, ask them to focus on these questions:
- What am I learning about the Dominican Republic from the video that I didn't learn from the other data sources the previous lessons?
- How does using a variety of information sources help me to gain a more complete picture of a place and its people?
- Show the video in segments and give students time to fill in the Video Matrix. After showing the video, have students complete the Video Matrix in pairs and conduct a class discussion on the questions in #11 above.
- Then pose the following questions for class discussion:
- What did you learn about the Dominican Republic that you didn't know before?
- How is where you live similar to or different from what you saw in the video?
- How do you think you would feel if you couldn't count on having electricity every day?
- How would you feel if you were the boy who had to walk one hour to get to school?
- How would you feel if you were a Peace Corps Volunteer living in Los Toros?
- If you were to move to Hato Major, how would your life be similar to the way it is now?
- How would it be different?
- What did you learn from the video that you didn't learn from the interviews and demographics?
- After seeing the video, how do you think where we live influences how we live?
Assessment
- Ask students to recall one of the scenarios they selected before viewing the video:
- They just learned that their family is moving to the Dominican Republic.
- They are going to participate in a student exchange program and live in the Dominican Republic for a summer or a semester.
- They are about to graduate from college and begin their first job working for an international business that is sending them to work in the Dominican Republic.
- Ask students to pretend they are the person in one of the scenarios. In this role, have students write a narrative account in response to the following question:
- If you were the person in one of the three scenarios, how would what you have learned so far about the Dominican Republic help you to adjust to life in the Dominican Republic?
- Ask students to write their narrative account in a way that would also help others who are going to the Dominican Republic. Provide them with the checklist to help them structure their narrative accounts.
Framework and Standards
Enduring Understandings
- To gain a complete and accurate picture of a country, we need to draw on multiple sources of information and evaluate their quality and their perspective.
- Where we live influences how we live. Yet all of us are connected with each other and the world.
Essential Questions
- How is our picture of a country dependent on the sources we use to investigate it?
- How does using a variety of information sources help us gain a more complete picture of a place and its people?
- No matter where we may live, how are we all connected with each other and the world?
Standards
National Geography Standards
Human Systems: The characteristics, distribution, and complexity of Earth's cultural mosaics.
National Council for the Social Studies
Culture (NCSS Theme I): Students can compare the similarities and differences in the ways groups, societies, and cultures meet human needs and concerns.