Last week I had the pleasure of having my 7th grade social studies classes in for an infographic safari. A safari is full of exploration, discovery, and excitement so I thought that was a fitting name for this lesson.
To begin the lesson, I defined infographic and we looked at several examples together. After the quick introduction, students went to 8 different tables in groups of two or three. Each table held a different infographic that addressed some aspect of World War II or the Cold War. I used our postermaker to enlarge and print each one. A few of the infographics I used can be found
here,
here,
here and
here.The students had to answer three questions about each infographic and two reflection questions about the benefits of displaying information this way. They spent about five minutes with each infographic.
Finally, students used passages from their class workbook to create their own infographic. I created a template using one I found on the
New York Times Learning Network site as a guide.
This is a great activity for any subject. You would just need to find or make infographics that address the topics you want to cover. It addresses the content standards as well as information literacy skills. Every student was engaged and enjoyed the movement and novelty of the different infographic stations. The teachers remarked on how well students behaved and how quickly they were able to locate information on the infographics.
If you have an infographic safari I would love to hear about it. Have you used infographics in a lesson? What kinds of activities have you tried? or want to try?
For a more in depth infographic creation lesson see my previous
blog post.
