The ECHO partners have produced a learning center in www.echospace.org with dozens of classroom activities for you class room and for the 2011 Performing Arts Festival theme Celebrate — Song, Dance and Story! The learning center also provides background information for your students. With this information, you and your students can explore how different regions in America celebrate life through songs, dances and stories.
How to get to the PAF Learning Center:
Go online to www.echospace.org. Go to Learning Centers and click on Performing Arts Festival 2010.

Before the Performance
In class, locate the regions covered in the curriculum: the homeland of the Mississippi Choctaw, northern Alaska (home of the Iñupiat), The Aleutian Islands, the Hawaiian Islands, the Wampanoag homeland in Massachusetts and the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
The activity ideas are not ordered sequentially, so feel free to dive in wherever you like. One common thread is an exploration of how we celebrate life through songs, dances and stories.
After undertaking the activities in your classroom, prepare your students for the performance by exploring the topic of celebrations. List ways that students celebrate special times and events in their families and communities. Have students bring pictures of celebrations and develop a bulletin board.

After the Performance
Continue your exploration with additional activity ideas that center on celebrations. There are many online lesson plans that give instructions on researching, planning and staging a celebration that represents one of the ECHO regions, or your own community.


National Geography Standards addressed in the material
• Standard 1: How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools and technologies to acquire, process and report information.
• Standard 3: How to analyze the spatial organization of people, places and environments on Earth’s surface.
• Standard 4: The physical and human characteristics of places.
• Standard 9: The characteristics, distribution and migration of human populations on Earth’s surface.
• Standard 12: The process, patterns, and functions of human settlement.
• Standard 14: How human actions modify the physical environment.
• Standard 15: How physical systems affect human systems.
• Standard 16: The changes that occur in the meaning, use, distribution and importance of resources.
• Standard 17: How to apply geography to interpret the past.
• Standard 18: How to apply geography to interpret the present and plan for the future.

Standards in History for Grades K-4
• Standard 1: Family life now and in the recent past; family life in various places long ago.
• Standard 6: Regional folklore and cultural contributions that helped to form our national heritage.
NCTE/IRA Standards for the English Language Arts
• Standard 5: Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and non-fiction, historical and contemporary works.
• Standard 7: Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems.
They gather, evaluate and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and non-print text, artifacts, and people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
• Standard 8: Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
• Standard 9: Students develop an understanding of and respect for diversity in language use, patterns and dialects across cultures, ethnic groups, geographic regions and social roles.

Students with Ed Tiulana, Cultural Programs Coordinator