HOMEWOOD, Illinois—What can the Jamestown Colony and the International Space Station possibly have in common? Plenty, if you ask fifth-graders at Bright School. Students will point out that both locations are colonies, and that neither could have been developed without a spirit of cooperation.

Joy Reeves is a fifth-grade teacher at this urban school where poverty is pervasive. Many students live in a low-income housing complex, and several in her class are learning English as a second language. Reeves, a
17-year classroom veteran, is also a veteran grant writer, which enables her "to offer my students more experiences than they would have received through normal funding methods."

Few students have access to technology outside of school. Reeves makes sure they have ample opportunities to use the seven networked computers in her classroom, an additional set of six computers in the school library, along with video cameras, digital cameras, scanners, and other equipment. "By providing hands-on, problem-solving activities using technology, we're bringing their knowledge and skills into the 21st century," she adds. Students will need these skills, she says, "to compete in the academic and business world outside this economically depressed neighborhood."

For the recent study of colonies, for instance, Reeves escorted students on virtual tours of the Plymouth Plantation and the International Space Station. They used Cable in the Classroom programs and guides to obtain more information. To support their online Web quests with hands-on activities, they built classroom models of colonial settlements and the ISS.

A parallel science project focused on farming. Reeves asked students to use tools such as the Internet to discover, "How did the colonists have to adapt to the foods and climate in the New World, and how must farming in space be adapted to sustain the residents of the International Space Station?" Helpful Web sites included one provided by NASA: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/farming/farming.html*.

As Reeves explains, "This interdisciplinary lesson parallels the formation and development of colonies in the New World with the current formation and development of the colony in space. Students learn how various cultures affected the settlement of the Americas, and the development of the ISS. Most importantly, students discover for themselves what the colonists and the countries of the world have had to learn: the necessity of cooperation for success."

There were other discoveries along the way, as well. One day during the unit, students were watching a History Channel show called "Jamestown Revisited." Reeves recalls: "It was a documentary on the excavation at the original Jamestown site. The archeologist in the program told how they'd found a skeleton in the dig. The skeleton had a musket ball imbedded in his leg bone. The program then segued to a classroom discussion titled, "Who shot J.R.?" (a play on "Jamestown Revisited").

The teacher laughed at the pun, but students did not. "They looked at me strangely, wondering why I was laughing at someone being shot." She filled them in on the "Who shot J.R.?" cliffhanger from the old "Dallas" television show. To her surprise, students didn't care a bit about the cliffhanger technique. "They wanted to know who shot J.R. Ewing." She shared the story, then had a revelation of her own. "Now we know about two J.R.'s who were shot. We all realized at that moment that what goes around comes around. Even violence."