Troy 30-C Students Explore How To Be "Agents Of Change"

This year, Troy teacher Jennifer McGowan’s 5th grade Applied Technology with Literature class used news articles as avenues to explore how to make the world a better place.

First, the William B. Orenic Intermediate School students learned about false narratives in online resources and how to pause when reading articles to consider those implications. Avoiding bias was another important lesson, McGowan said. Then, the students pursued individual projects on how to be activists of change to make the world a better place.

Their question was, “What could I fix?”

Students focused on such issues as human rights; gas emissions; pollution; the biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest; and advocating for the secretive and endangered clouded leopard that lives in Southeast Asian rainforests.

After her research, student Natalia Falcon-Diaz came up with goals to help the clouded leopard and other endangered species.

She plans on picking up litter in a forest and also hopes to save up some money and donate it to animal protection. Animals are dying from habitat destruction, she explained in her presentation, and littering harms the environment.

“If I succeed,” Natalia said, “then I will find other things that might help more, and if not, I will keep trying!”

The project culminated with a global, online assembly celebration of students and teachers who stand up and advocate for change.

“It helped the students become smart consumers and capable contributors,” McGowan said of the project.