Courses

Join us as we explore the interconnections of time and space through documentaries, shared fact-finding, presentations, and then apply our understanding of the geography and history through roleplaying adventures.

Each five-week cycle involves spending two weeks exploring a documentary, a week on a time period, a week on a country, and culminates in a roleplaying adventure to bring it all together!

Three times over the course of the year, learners will be asked to prepare a 5-7 minute presentation diving more deeply into an aspect of either the cycle’s time period or its country. They will be able to choose a topic that interests them from that time period or country. These presentations will be spaced out evenly over the year and can be as informal as just talking about what they learned and sharing a picture or two or as formal as a slideshow presentation. The three presentations for the year will include EITHER two geography and one history OR two history and one geography.

The cycle begins with watching a documentary for homework and coming ready to discuss, “How do people, places, and ideas change over time and space?” and ”What defines a documentary as a documentary?” We will spend two weeks exploring these select points in time as we discuss these essential questions and build our group timeline of events. We will deepen our understanding through a wide range of activities including exploring the science behind the history, investigating the stories of individuals from the time, discussing film technique, and examining primary sources.

The third week of each cycle will be devoted to exploring a different historical period through learner presentations and fact-sharing. We will be going in chronological order starting from 1000 BCE and ending in 1400 CE. Everyone will be asked to bring one fact connected with the time period for each of the six inhabited continents. After we share the facts we found, two people will share their presentations. They can present on a historical event, a person, technology, sports, literature, arts, or any other aspect of the time period!

The fourth week of each cycle will be devoted to exploring a different country through learner presentations and fact-sharing. Everyone will be asked to do some basic map work and to fill out a fact sheet about the country, including information such as its official name, currency, languages, climate, etc. After ensuring that we all understand the basics of the country in question, two people will share their presentations on an aspect of the country. This could be animals, landmarks, symbols, music, dance, famous people, language, sports, food, or any other aspect of the country!

The fifth week of each cycle, everyone will meet at the same time as usual, but instead of a usual class, they will be applying their understanding of the geography and history of the cycle through a THREE-HOUR roleplaying adventure. Learners will play as characters connected in some way to the documentary we explored. They will then play through an adventure that takes them to the country and time period that we have been exploring. These seven game days will be run by: Adira Delicate, B.A. History and/or Lior Delicate, a university student.

****Note: The last cycle of the year will involve TWO roleplaying games, one as part of the exploration of the documentary and one at the end of the cycle.