General Description of the Major Project
For the final project in Cultures and Cycles students will develop a persuasive public advisory. This is the culminating activity designed to bring together concepts from science, language arts, social studies, and mathematics classes over the past quarter. In the project, students will organize and deliver a presentation to an assigned community that is situated in an area where there is a significant amount of arsenic in the ground.

In the science class, students will research the geochemical processes that give rise to arsenic in the region’s groundwater. In the language arts class, students research the effects of arsenic contamination and formulate a persuasive advisory to the public warning them of the effects of arsenic in the ground water. In social studies, students will become aware of the health risks and resulting societal implications of arsenic contamination in drinking water. They will also become skilled at map usage and cultural geography which will aid students in locating arsenic deposits and help them become better attuned to the needs of specific communities. During the presentation in the Language Arts class, students must keep in mind the cultural background of their target audience and utilize scientific evidence, which will be presented in the form of statistics, charts, tables, etc, which will be created in the math class.

Introducing the project to your students:
We have a form letter that can be given to students, Major Project Introduction for Students
This letter may be modified for your classroom. We suggest giving the letter out at the end of the language arts lesson, The Dangers of Illiteracy. Review with the students what you will be doing as a class over the next few weeks to help them prepare to give their presentations. Explain to the students that they will choose the community that they will present to after the world geography lesson Who am I?

Which lessons are central to the Major Project?
The major project is designed to provide a forum for students to demonstrate what they have learned throughout the unit in the context of an environmental health or biomedical issue. There are some lessons that are more pertinent to the major project than others.
The chart below highlights lessons that we think are central to the major project either because they deal specifically with arsenic in drinking water or with useful skills associated with presenting to different populations. Other lessons may be necessary to support these lessons. For a review of the full unit go to: http://pulse.pharmacy.arizona.edu/9th_grade/culture_cycles/index.html.