Students will investigate the essential question, “How does living in transitional spaces (border towns) affect how we think of ourselves and how we interact with the world?” Through community research, collaborative inquiry, and critical reflection, they will examine identity, belonging, group behavior, and the local impacts of emerging technology. Students will synthesize multiple cultural perspectives into a context-informed visual art or theatre work and present possible responses to challenges facing border communities.
Learning goals
Students will investigate the essential question, “How does living in transitional spaces, such as border towns, affect how we think of ourselves and how we interact with the world?” They will analyze how place, culture, resources, and social group behavior shape identity, belonging, interactions, and responses to art. Students will debate how an emerging technology affects social, cultural, and environmental issues in a border community, using evidence and empathetic listening. In collaborative teams, they will incorporate diverse community perspectives into a theatre work, test solutions to staging challenges, share leadership, and reflect on their creative decisions.
Standards
[Computer Science Teachers Association] MS-SOC-ET-42 - Debate ways an emerging technology impacts the social, cultural, and environmental issues in local communities.
[Next Generation Science Standards] LS.2.D - Social Interactions and Group Behavior
[National Core Arts Standards] TH:Cn10.7.a - Incorporate multiple perspectives and diverse community ideas in a drama/theatre work.
[National Core Arts Standards] VA:Cn11.1.7a - Analyze how response to art is influenced by understanding the time and place in which it was created, the available resources, and cultural uses.
[National Core Arts Standards] TH:Cr1.7.a - Investigate multiple perspectives and solutions to staging challenges in a drama/theatre work.
Competencies
Critical Thinking & Problem Solving - Students consider a variety of innovative approaches to address and understand complex questions that are authentic and important to their communities.
Academic Mindset - Students establish a sense of place, identity, and belonging to increase self-efficacy while engaging in critical reflection and action.
Collaboration - Students co-design projects with peers, exercise shared-decision making, strengthen relational agency, resolve conflict, and assume leadership roles.
Effective Communication - Students practice listening to understand, communicating with empathy, and share their learning through exhibiting, presenting and reflecting on their work.
Content Expertise - Students develop key competencies, skills, and dispositions with ample opportunities to apply knowledge and engage in work that matters to them.
Products
Students will create a visual field journal documenting how border-town art, spaces, resources, and social interactions shape identity and belonging. Teams will develop stakeholder profiles, map contrasting perspectives, and produce evidence cards about the social, cultural, and environmental impacts of an emerging technology in a local transitional space. For the culminating product, teams will stage an original short theatre work that presents multiple community perspectives and tests alternative solutions to a staging or community challenge. Each team will also participate in a public debate and exhibit its artwork, research, and reflections addressing how living in transitional spaces affects how people understand themselves and interact with the world.
Launch
Transform the classroom into a fictional border town with staged checkpoints, public art, community soundscapes, and an emerging facial-recognition system. In rotating roles, students navigate the space, observe how groups interact, and document how each character experiences identity, belonging, access, and surveillance. Teams then restage one moment from multiple community perspectives and debate how the technology could affect local social, cultural, and environmental conditions. Conclude with the question, “How does living in transitional spaces, such as border towns, affect how we think of ourselves and how we interact with the world?”
Exhibition
Host an interactive “Transitional Spaces” community exhibition featuring student-created visual installations and short theatre performances that represent multiple perspectives on border-town identity and belonging. Student teams stage audience movement through the space, explain how time, place, resources, and cultural uses shaped their artistic choices, and revise staging solutions after peer feedback. Include a moderated student debate on how an emerging technology affects social, cultural, and environmental issues in border communities, using evidence and empathetic listening. Conclude with an audience reflection wall responding to: “How does living in transitional spaces affect how we think of ourselves and how we interact with the world?”
