Discover Global Cultures: Sharing Our Traditions

Teacher presents the project purpose and shows students a short visual roadmap explaining how they will explore their own culture and connect with students from other countries through food, festivals, songs, and dances.

Students watch a brief welcome video or presentation introducing the Class2Class platform and explaining that they will be collaborating with international partner classrooms to share and learn about different cultures.

Teacher guides students through the project timeline and explains how they will use the Project Board to post their work, watch videos from partner classes, and exchange messages with new friends around the world.

For Activity 1, students create short video introductions (1-2 minutes each) showing one cultural symbol important to their community, such as a traditional food, festival decoration, or musical instrument, and briefly explain why it matters to them.

Each student posts their video on the Project Board so that partner classrooms can view and learn about their culture.

Students watch videos from their international partner class and identify one cultural symbol that surprised or interested them.

Guide students to create reactions and initial observations by posting comments on the Project Board, such as 'I liked the traditional dance because...' or 'This food looks interesting because...'

The class collaborates to create a digital mural on the Project Board where they post their reactions, drawings, or photos of the cultural symbols they discovered from partner classrooms.

For Activity 2, teacher facilitates a class discussion by asking students: 'What aspects of our culture best represent who we are?' and 'How do our traditions reflect what we value?' to spark curiosity about cultural identity.

Students brainstorm and share their ideas about what makes their culture unique, thinking about foods, celebrations, music, dances, and family traditions they experience.

Guide students to vote on which questions feel most important to them, and the class agrees on one or two driving questions that will guide their exploration.

Students help post the agreed-upon driving questions on the Project Board and share them with partner classes so everyone is exploring similar ideas about cultural identity.

For Activity 3, students conduct interviews with family members about traditional foods, festivals, songs, or dances from their country, using a simple question sheet provided by the teacher (e.g., 'What is your favorite traditional food?' 'When do we celebrate special festivals?').

Students document their findings through photos of food or decorations, drawings of dances or instruments, or short written descriptions of what they learned from their families.

In class, students organize their discoveries into categories on a large chart or digital document, grouping foods together, festivals together, songs together, and dances together.

Guide students to identify the most meaningful cultural elements from their collection and discuss why these traditions are important to their families and community.

Students create a visual presentation such as a poster, digital slides using Google Slides, or a collage that highlights their cultural discoveries and prepares them to share with international peers.

Use the Class2Class group chat to remind students about their interviews and help organize the collection of materials before moving to the next phase.

For Activity 4, each class presents their cultural materials through a creative product such as a short video, digital mural, or infographic that showcases their food, festivals, songs, and dances in an engaging way.

Students post their class presentation on the Project Board so that partner classes can view and explore their culture asynchronously, or participate in a scheduled video call to present live.

Students watch presentations from their international partner class and take notes on similarities and differences they notice between their own culture and the partner culture (e.g., 'Both our countries celebrate with special foods' or 'Their dances are different from ours').

For Activity 5, facilitate a guided Q&A session where students ask questions about the cultures they discovered, such as 'What does this festival celebrate?' or 'Can you teach us how to dance this dance?' and partner students respond with answers.

Guide students to document their questions and responses in a shared collaborative mural or forum on the Project Board, creating a record of the intercultural dialogue and discoveries.

Use the group chat to coordinate timing with partner classrooms and support students in asking thoughtful questions about the cultures they are learning about.

For Activity 6, students organize a local Cultural Exchange Fair or presentation for their school community where they display what they learned from international peers.

Students create exhibition materials such as posters showing cultural symbols, photo displays of traditional foods and festivals, and video screenings of their partner classrooms' presentations.

Guide students to prepare short explanations or captions for their displays that help other students in the school understand the cultural elements they are showcasing.

Students contribute their final products and reflections to a shared international gallery on the Project Board, creating a public celebration of cultural diversity that represents all participating classrooms.

Facilitate a viewing of the international gallery so students can see how other classrooms around the world celebrated their cultures and learned from each other.

For Activity 7, guide students to reflect individually on their intercultural learning using questions such as 'What did I learn about other cultures?' 'What did I discover about my own culture?' and 'How did this project change the way I think about people from other countries?'

Students record their thoughts through drawings, short written reflections (3-5 sentences), or video messages that capture their learning and growth.

The class creates a shared reflection mural on the Project Board where students post key takeaways, interesting discoveries, and new friendships they made with international peers.

Guide students to compose thank you messages to their partner classroom, expressing what they appreciated about the cultural exchange and what they will remember about their new friends.

Partner classes exchange thank you messages on the Project Board to celebrate their collaboration and close the intercultural exchange experience with gratitude and connection.