Disability Awareness - I Live Life Differently

Classroom Discription: High School classroom in a public school building containing student from many surrounding towns in two states. Students all have multiple physical challenges as well as some learning difficulties. Many students use wheelchairs, alternative communication devices, hearing aids, sign language, walkers/gait trainers, low vision aids and other assistive devices.

Purpose: This will be the capstone project of disability awareness month. Students will demonstrate their knowledge of their own disability, their need to advocate for themselves and will serve their communities. This will be done by creating presentations, displays or multimedia slide shows to share about living with disabilities. Students will also demonstrate ability to plan and execute a longer term project and utilize many resources. Projects will focus on how students in the class do everything other high school students do, just in different ways. I.e. they eat at Mc Donald's, with friends, by they order using a high tech communication device or they listen to music, only they plug the MP3 player into their FM device they streams into their hearing aide. They go to work, only they push the broom around the sub shop with their power wheelchair.

Procedure:

1. Students will fill out a worksheet that will help them identify what parts of their lives they want to share. They will use this to research what they want to write about and what they want to photograph.
2. Once students have turned in the worksheet and given an outline of what they will write about (using various adaptive softwares) they will be given a day or more to take photographs. Students will be reminded to focus on how they do what everyone else their age does, only differently.
3. Students will download the pictures into the computer and begin to decide what they want to write to go with the images.
4. Students will finalize text and begin the editing process.
5. Students will have 1:1 staff assistance through a final editing and production process.
6. Students will display the project either in the school or in the community.
7. Student will decide whether to keep or donate the project to a community group for further displays.