View from my window Subject areas Art and design Social studies/ Citizenship ICT Age: 8-18 Duration of project: 2 weeks to 2 months Resources: A photograph of a view from somewhere in the school, to be described by students. Summary In this project, students communicate about their world through words and images.  Students choose a view from one of the windows in the school and then e-mail a written description of the view.  Students from the partner school then draw or paint a picture based on the information in the description. 1) The Photo A photograph is taken of the view from a window the students have choosen.   A print of it is obtained while the other steps in the project are being completed. If the school has access to a digital camera this may be used. But don't send it to the partner school yet! 2) The Description Students write a paragraph that describes the view from the window. Use simple language that the partner school will understand. The paragraphs can be posted on the school's section of the E-link website. 3) The Interpretation Students from the partner schools read the descriptions. They then, create a visual interpretation (a drawing, print, painting, collage or computer-generated image) of the unseen view to complement the written description. This image is sent to the project officer by snail-mail or, if electronic, as an attachment on e-mail. (If e-mailed then the name of the format it is saved as should be included e.g. .jpg, .bmp or .tff etc) 4) The Discussion After the descriptions have been posted students from the partner schools comment on each other's images. These comments can also be posted on the website. 5) The Real Thing After comments are made about the students' visual images, the photographs of the actual scenes are posted on the e-link website so that the students in the partner schools may see how close they were with their visual interpretations.  Differences between the surroundings of the schools can then be discussed. Online resources  This project idea was adapted from the through my window project which is taking place between schools in Australia and their partner schools in Wales.  You can see step by step instructions and examples of students' work on the site.   Details of this, and other projects can be found on The Common Good website which brings together many resources for teaching civics and citizenship. Click here to return to the projects contents page