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Interdisciplinary Subject (IDS)

An interdisciplinary curriculum equips students with a toolkit for thinking about the complex problems of the world and of themselves as learners. The interdisciplinary subject is a series of lessons, activities, and projects that aim to combine all typical school subjects into one holistic view of education. Our draft curriculum, in partnership with ongoing grant-funding from Holistic Think Tank, provides teachers with actionable steps toward making change. Further developments of the IDS will occur across 2023-2024.

At a Glance

Interdisciplinary education is crucial for fostering innovative thinking and solving complex problems across multiple fields. In other words, multi-subject learning is required to tackle the problems of today and work collaboratively toward change. Our phase 1 (of 3) contribution to the IDS includes:

629 pages of:

  • 41 far-ranging, broad interdisciplinary lessons
  • 246 extension activities to focus each of these lessons across the entire curriculum, as well as supplement media and extensive projects
  • A pedagogical guide for teaching and using the IDS
  • An impact guide for fostering experiential learning
  • Alignment to community change & concepts of wonder, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
A lesson plan titled From Empathy to Action.A lesson plan titled Local and Global Hunger.A lesson plan titled Professional Planning.

Implementation

The IDS is designed to be:

  • Modular: We know that educators rarely use activities "out of the box." Each lesson is broken down into modular sections to be adapted, remixed, and broken.
  • Extendable: All lessons contain multiple project ideas, media options, and kickstarted activities for typical classrooms to take these ideas further.
  • Progressive: Our curriculum centers progressive practice, including designing within universal design for learning (UDL) and self-directed education (SDL) frameworks.

This content is aimed at a middle school (6th-8th grade) audience, but could easily be adapted to other grade levels. We recognize that there are varying degrees of implementation of an entirely interdisciplinary course, ranging from pick-up activities in an advisory period to a full class period. In theory, the IDS is designed to tackle a selection of lessons over the course of a semester, followed by an extensive project in the second semester.

The cover of the Impact Guidebook.Half of an infographic titled What is Project-Based Learning - with a summary of the differences between different types of PBL implementation (found within the attached Impact Guidebook).Half of an infographic titled What is Project-Based Learning - with a summary of the differences between different types of PBL implementation (found within the attached Impact Guidebook).

Resources

We recommend accessing our resources in the following order:

  • Pedagogical Guidebook: An overview of the design of the IDS, the included lessons, different implementation strategies, and the why/how of interdisciplinary learning.
  • Facilitation Guides (available as Google Documents): Teacher copies of each of the 41 lessons with additional guided information.
  • Student Guides (available as Google Documents): Student copies of each of the 41 lessons.
  • Impact Guidebook: A PBL/experiential-driven guide for harnessing IDS lessons and designing an extensive, multi-week project. We've designed the IDS to implement this project after a series of lessons.
A lesson plan titled Democratic Action.A page of a lesson plan, Democratic Action, with images of graffiti within. Full lesson text can be found in the attached Facilitation Guides.A page of a lesson plan, Democratic Action, with extension activities listed. Full lesson text can be found in the attached Facilitation Guides.

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* Please note that the IDS is currently under development in an ongoing grant from Holistic Think Tank in conjunction with the University of Sheffield. This is a draft of phase 1 (of 3) of the Human Restoration Project interdisciplinary subject and changes will be rapidly occurring across 2023-2024. However, please feel free to offer us feedback! Further, Holistic Think Tank is looking for educators to become involved in this project. Visit their website to learn more.

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Human Restoration Project is a 501(c)3 nonprofit. PO Box 322. Slater, IA. 50244. United States.
All content is released under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, share-alike international license unless otherwise noted.

It's about mattering, feeling like you matter and also that what you're doing matters. I think it's important for me that I feel like I can bring my full self to something, heart and head, and that all of the various parts of me are alive and challenged and supported and so all of that kind of comes back to love, feeling loved, loving seems at the center of a good life to me.

Derek

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