March is Women’s History Month, and throughout the month we take time to recognize and celebrate women who have made contributions to the world. The month-long celebration grew out of what started as a week-long celebration held and organized by a school district in California in 1978. Students at the school participated in a “real woman” essay contest. The event drew a lot of attention which inspired more school districts and organizations across the United States to participate. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued a presidential proclamation that declared the week of March 8th as Women’s History Week.
Six years later, the event became a month-long celebration in March after the National Women’s History project petitioned Congress to make the change. In March, we also celebrate International Women’s Day which first took place on March 8, 1911. Many countries participate by having celebrations and engaging in activities to recognize the contributions of women. Each year a theme is chosen for the month. This year, the theme is “Women providing healing, promoting hope.” It is focused more on recognizing how women from around the world and from different cultures have impacted society and supported others.
To help our students become more aware of these important events and to broaden their cultural awareness, it is important that we find resources that will help students to explore in authentic and meaningful ways. Once students have time to explore and learn, they need opportunities to create and share that learning with classmates and even beyond their school community. Buncee and PebbleGo Create make this possible because together they provide the right resources to create a meaningful and engaging learning experience for students.
Choosing a focus
To help students learn more about impactful women from history, teachers can get started by exploring some of the templates available and lessons from the Ideas Lab. Depending on the grade level or specific content area, there are a lot of options to choose from. Students can start with one of the templates available for Women’s History Month or start from a blank template to create something more authentic and personalized to their specific interests and needs.
For younger students using PebbleGo, they can search biographies about women history makers. They can then design a Buncee to visualize and share their learning. Teachers can get started quickly with PebbleGo because it provides lesson plans and all of the materials that teachers need, which makes it a great choice.
Learning together
Having students share their creations and learn from their classmates builds social awareness and understanding of different perspectives. To enhance learning and encourage students to share their work and build essential SEL skills, we can use a Buncee Board. A Buncee Board promotes collaboration in a digital space, helping students to develop many of the essential skills for the future and also to feel connected, especially if we are in virtual learning environments. Buncee boards can even be shared with other classrooms!
Check out some of the great examples for Women’s History Month in this Buncee Board.
Provide them with opportunities to share their ideas, engage in inquiry based learning, and explore different resources as they build their self- and social-awareness. By sharing their work with others, they focus on building social awareness and relationship skills during the learning process and develop a greater cultural understanding of others and their experiences. With Buncee, we have more choices available that will engage students in meaningful learning during Women’s History Month.
There are many templates and wonderful activities that you can do using Buncee and PebbleGo in your classroom. Perhaps have students select a woman from history to research and to create their own Buncee to share what they have learned about this woman.
Students could even decide to interview someone about the work that they’re doing, a person that inspired them, it could be a family member, someone from their community, a business owner, anybody and they could use all of the features to share what they learned about that person in a Buncee. Being able to talk about what they learned using all of the graphics and media options available within Buncee would enable them to create something truly authentic and meaningful. And the best part is that students will be able to create something that is purposeful and will help others to learn about and honor influential women from history.
More ideas
💡 Create a timeline and consider specific events that change history, for example in 1920 when women gained the right to vote.
💡 Create a Buncee with a famous quote from a woman and express how students interpret it and share information about the woman who is known for it.
💡 Explain an experiment, a process, a complex idea and find innovators and inventors throughout history who are known for work in this area!
💡 Research writers or artists and create a Buncee to share information about them and create a work of art or a poem in their style.
💡 Explore careers and women who are known for their work in these areas. Maybe a Buncee job shadow or career exploration would be a great idea!
Whether students choose to focus on a particular area, perhaps someone that made an impact in the medical field, in science, in history, in the arts, in sports, in any area of interest, promotes student choice and voice in learning. Connecting their own interests with learning about a person who made a difference in that area, will boost engagement and foster creativity in learning.
Meet the Author
Rachelle Dené Poth is an ed-tech consultant, presenter, attorney, author, and teacher. Rachelle teaches Spanish and STEAM: What’s nExT in Emerging Technology at Riverview Junior-Senior High School in Oakmont, PA. Rachelle has a Juris Doctor degree from Duquesne University School of Law and a Master’s in Instructional Technology. She is a Consultant and Speaker, owner of ThriveinEDU LLC Consulting. She is an ISTE Certified Educator and currently serves as the past -president of the ISTE Teacher Education Network and on the Leadership team of the Mobile Learning Network. At ISTE19, she received the Making IT Happen Award and a Presidential Gold Award for volunteer service to education. She is also a Buncee Ambassador, Nearpod PioNear, and Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert.
Rachelle is the author of seven books and is a blogger for Getting Smart, Defined Learning, and NEO LMS. Follow Rachelle on Twitter @Rdene915 and Instagram @Rdene915. Rachelle has a podcast, ThriveinEDU https://anchor.fm/rdene915.
