20 minutes west of Denver
(Bell rings)
The buzz for these fifth graders…
"So, when the queen bee lays the eggs..."
is how a field trip, can be so much more than 'ooohing and ahhing'
"Don't be afraid to touch it."
over holding a queen bee.
"What is one way anyone can help?"
They're 'bee'searching – colony collapse disorder, or CCD -
and how they can help save our beloved pollinators – the honeybees.
"Spread your wings and get to know people."
Meanwhile in downtown Denver at the Emily Griffith Campus...
"When Denver Public School(s) began, there hadn't been a Civil War yet."
Another group of students learning about another critical issue: discrimination in education.
"Denver was one of the first cities in the north to go all the way to the Supreme Court
with the desegregation case."
These aren't field trips.
They are excursions… connecting Brown International Academy students to professionals.
Interviews they mostly arranged, for projects they developed.
"What can we do to help stop discrimination in education?"
It's the centerpiece of their final project as International Baccalaureate Primary Years
students at Brown.
"Discrimination in Education."
A culmination of everything they've done from Kindergarten through fifth grade.
"Throughout the whole process you think, 'Is this going to come together?"
Wendy Edwards is a fifth-grade teacher at Brown who says, the students become the teachers.
"In a normal day we tend to guide them through their learning even if it has to do with research.
But in this project, they are held to a higher standard because they have to do this on their own."
Those interviews, add weight to their real world projects.
"Bee extinction is a real problem."
Revealing to these students a real need to take these things on – right now.
"All students have access to education but there is still a gap... achievement gaps..."
"They can make a change, they can have action.
And I think it's just beyond anything we could ever teach them in a classroom because they
learn it themselves."
Teachings they share with the community at a final presentation.
"Now I know how to stop it, and like, how not to discriminate people..."
Lessons they'll take with them for life.
"And it just becomes mind blowing."
For DPS Features, I'm Ben McKee
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