The Bosnian-Serb siege of Sarajevo, from spring 1993 until winter 1996, was the longest in modern history. With electricity, water and food supplies cut off and only sporadically supplied, with 11,541 citizens shot by snipers or killed by mortars, Sarajevans had to depend on each other.

 A lesson plan and Project for 9th grade Civic Studies, inspired by the Centropa film: "Survival in Sarajevo"    

Course lesson taught in: when filling in for absent colleagues  (happening with high frequency —after all it’s Italy

This lesson plan can be adapted to nearly every context and every age group because of the unique and strong message of the video “Survival in Sarajevo”. 

Summary of goals: to broaden the perception of my students about: 

·      PEACE - what is the significance of it

·      living together peacefully  

LADINO, LANGUAGE OF THE SEFARDIC JEWS

Grade of class: middle and junior high
Course lesson taught in: transversal during Spanish language and English language lessons
Category of lesson: Jewish Identity/preparation for family root project

Subject : “We know ourselves only to the extent we have been tested”   (W.Szymborska).

Human attitudes towards different life situations.

This final exam project culminates a semester of study and storytelling about Jewish life in Central Europe and the Holocaust that started with students presenting their own stories in picture collages, viewing Centropa films, and now creating films about Holocaust survivors. Using Centropa’s database, students choose one Centropa interviewee to research, reading the entire interview, viewing all of their photographs, reading Study Guide articles for historical context and other background.

This is a history project but because we want our students ultimately to teach each other, we started with an introductory video conference during which students asked each other questions and learned a little about one another. Students will then choose a biography from the Centropa website to read and study, as an example of what life was like for someone in a Central or Eastern European country during WWII.

In this cross-cultural project with students in North Carolina and Slovakia, our students are paired with a penfriend based on shared interests. The NC students wrote letters, but penfriends will get to know each other through electronic correspondence, as well. So each class can get to know something about our towns, we exchanged videos made by others about our cities – we sent the introduction to Greensboro sent by a local college.