ACTOS Project
Fall 2023
10th Grade
Students in the ACTOS Project worked together in their English and Spanish classes to learn about the use of theatre for social justice, the creative uses of theatre in social justice movements in Latin America and Spain, and created and performed original ten-minute ACTOS in a theatre immersion about issues and concerns facing High Tech High students.
Transportation Innovations
Late Spring 2023
9th Grade
Students in the Transportation Innovations Project worked together with their Humanities, Physics, and Math teachers to learn about new proposed changes to San Diego transit, ridership needs, and innovation driving these changes. Students researched, attended a meeting at SANDAG, and returned to present their short videos for use on the SANDAG social media site to encourage people to try these new forms and opportunities.
Folklorists Project
Spring 2023
9th Grade Humanities
Students in the Folklorists Project worked to learn the ancient art of oral storytelling, performing cultural folktales for 3rd grade buddies at High Tech Explorer. With their critiques, students then built "crankie boxes" out of wood, crafted interactive shadow puppets, and rehearsed and developed a 30-foot scroll as the moving background for their puppet theatre performances.
Food for All Project
Fall 2022
9th Grade Humanities
What is the Global Food Crisis?
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Project 360: Indigenous Guidance
Phase I: International indigenous women and non-binary environmental leaders
Phase II: North American and San Diegan indigenous cultures, history, issues, creativity
Guest SpeakersDr. Mario Aguilar
Beatrice Zamora Araceli Carrera Carmen Linares Kalo Richard Bugbee Jesse Pinto Angela Elliott Santos John Elliott Cynthia Ellis Topsey |
Field ExcursionsChicano Park
Mission Trails Regional Park Famosa Slough Old Town State Park Cuyamaca Rancho State Park |
Research Topics
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ECO Project
Griffin-Aviles Team Humanities-Chemistry 10th Grade Spring 2019 What are some properties of materials that make them useful, and what properties make them difficult or dangerous as waste products? What are key environmental concerns internationally, especially related to materials science and chemistry? How are young environmental activists pushing our thinking, scientifically, to benefit the environment? In Chemistry, students learned and practiced experiments to break down and reconstitute materials, testing the strength of materials, and determining how their molecular structure gives rise to their macroscopic properties. They used their new understanding to make products from materials they recycle themselves, or products that promote a green lifestyle.. In Humanities, studied the history of the environmental movement, researched and followed current environmental issues particular to climate change on an international scale, and interviewed environmental activists, experts, and researchers. Students created two e-magazines (one per class) reflecting their research. Deliverables:
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Lenguaje y Poder
Lisa Griffin - Andrea Adams
Humanities - Spanish 10th Grade
Fall 2018
Essential Questions:
Project Product(s):
Lisa Griffin - Andrea Adams
Humanities - Spanish 10th Grade
Fall 2018
Essential Questions:
- How does language shape us all as individuals, as communities, and as a nation?
- How might we learn more about social organization and social stereotyping related to language, both now and in the past?
Project Product(s):
- Personal Language Background Interviews
- Laser-cut Word/Phrase in heritage language, English, and Spanish.
- Dia de los Muertos Workshop and HTH altar
- Interviews with multilingual HTH community members, students, entrepreneurs, academics, and other professionals across San Diego
- Theatrical Event (using verbatim theatre from interviews, possibly weaving in audio and visuals from prior project components)
The REFUSE Project
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Proyecto ComUNIDAD
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San Diego Sanctuary Project
Lisa Griffin - Loredana Mitescu
Humanities - Spanish 10th Grade
Spring 2017
What can responsible people do when confronted with powerful evidence of acts against humanity and civilization?
How can history be used as a tool to prevent future atrocities rather than to reinforce divisions among people?
In this project, we have learned about the international refugee crisis, and tracked current events related to our government as well as San Diego's unique role in welcoming refugees (currently largest resettlement city in the country). Students interviewed refugee teens and adults, as well as government and nonprofit organization leaders, humanitarian aid workers, lawyers, researchers and others connected to San Diego's refugee communities as well as internationally.
Based on information from their interviews, students created plans and actions to volunteer in different useful ways in direct service to San Diego's refugee communities. Some students hosted donation drives in partnership with local organizations, while others tutored elementary-aged newcomer students at schools in City Heights and El Cajon. One group of students connected with a refugee project and students in Northern California, and they co-designed a workshop for educators and will facilitate it at the FutureNow conference in late April, with an online forum about building empathy in PBL, called https://www.empathycb.com/forum-1/. Several students wrote articles, about our project and the power of youth activism and action, accepted for publication in UnBoxed as well as the Teens4Refugees blog. Students invited advisory classes across our campus to write over 200 postcards to refugee children in camps in 45 different countries in partnership with Any Refugee. One group of students partnered with a fourth grade class to refinish skateboards and to donate them and sets of helmets and pads to refugee youth abroad, in Jordan, and here in East San Diego County. You can read and watch media clips of this branch of our project here, here, and here, as well as seeing the video that accompanies these boards to Syrian youth in Jordan here.
Our team hosted a grand public exhibition on May 25th to share our art, learning, celebrate San Diego's unique and vibrant refugee populations, and to spark empathy and action in others. We also co-hosted a second exhibition of our project for an international cohort of educators in HTH's Grad School of Education. Finally, our team's creative work is in a long-term exhibition at the San Diego branch office of the International Rescue Committee.
Deliverables:
Lisa Griffin - Loredana Mitescu
Humanities - Spanish 10th Grade
Spring 2017
What can responsible people do when confronted with powerful evidence of acts against humanity and civilization?
How can history be used as a tool to prevent future atrocities rather than to reinforce divisions among people?
In this project, we have learned about the international refugee crisis, and tracked current events related to our government as well as San Diego's unique role in welcoming refugees (currently largest resettlement city in the country). Students interviewed refugee teens and adults, as well as government and nonprofit organization leaders, humanitarian aid workers, lawyers, researchers and others connected to San Diego's refugee communities as well as internationally.
Based on information from their interviews, students created plans and actions to volunteer in different useful ways in direct service to San Diego's refugee communities. Some students hosted donation drives in partnership with local organizations, while others tutored elementary-aged newcomer students at schools in City Heights and El Cajon. One group of students connected with a refugee project and students in Northern California, and they co-designed a workshop for educators and will facilitate it at the FutureNow conference in late April, with an online forum about building empathy in PBL, called https://www.empathycb.com/forum-1/. Several students wrote articles, about our project and the power of youth activism and action, accepted for publication in UnBoxed as well as the Teens4Refugees blog. Students invited advisory classes across our campus to write over 200 postcards to refugee children in camps in 45 different countries in partnership with Any Refugee. One group of students partnered with a fourth grade class to refinish skateboards and to donate them and sets of helmets and pads to refugee youth abroad, in Jordan, and here in East San Diego County. You can read and watch media clips of this branch of our project here, here, and here, as well as seeing the video that accompanies these boards to Syrian youth in Jordan here.
Our team hosted a grand public exhibition on May 25th to share our art, learning, celebrate San Diego's unique and vibrant refugee populations, and to spark empathy and action in others. We also co-hosted a second exhibition of our project for an international cohort of educators in HTH's Grad School of Education. Finally, our team's creative work is in a long-term exhibition at the San Diego branch office of the International Rescue Committee.
Deliverables:
- Refugee crisis stakeholder interviews
- Action plan, process to benefit local refugees and organizations as well as reflection
- Visual/Performing art piece for public event to build empathy with refugees and to share possibilities for action
Amigos en las Américas Project
Lisa Griffin - Sofia Tannenhaus
Humanities - Spanish 10th grade
Fall 2016
In the Amigos en las Américas project at Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High in San Diego, California, students built connections with teens in Mexico, Central and South America as part of a semester-long cross-cultural youth friendship project. Weekly video chat sessions facilitated learning about their peers’ lifestyles, beliefs, community, and culture, as well email exchanges with their partners. Their dialogues sparked from the questions: Who am I? Where am I from? Where am I going? Students created essential questions for their dialogues, exploring issues that they and their peers are grappling with. They also conducted research sparked by their dialogues, related to their partner’s country, with a focus on the political, artistic, and cultural factors that impact their partners and their communities.
PROJECT DESIGN:
Each semester, our team projects are co-designed with my collaborative teaching partners, with extensive room for student choice and idea development.
My projects are infused by my passions for community-building, creative expression, and critical analysis of the many and layered broader contexts surrounding current and historical events and social justice issues worldwide.
Upstander Stories
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rEvolutionaries Project
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INNERnet Connection Project
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