Read Your Way to Everest Activity: Division I - IV

Integration Notes:
Read Your Way to Everest allows students to actively participate in the Everest expedition and can be integrated with current language arts programs. It also encourages students to read. There is an opportunity to interact with the team online and share information with other schools via the Internet.

Please note that this activity continues through to Phase 5 of the education program as students follow the Everest 2000 climb. If students are part of the Telecollaborative Project, Getting to Know You, this project will complement it in Phase 3 (learning about life in Nepal compared to their own).

The main part of the project in this phase is to collect books regarding the suggested themes, set up teams, and start reading!

Learner Outcomes:

Students will:

• Set a goal to read a predetermined number of pages/words. (group decision at the school level)
• Communicate with others and conduct research via the Internet (including websites and E-mail).

Activity Instructions:

1. Listen to the Read Your Way to Everest audio clip.
Read to Everest Challenge | Video and Audio Archive
In this segment of audio, Byron challenges students to join him and his team on their journey to the top of the world by participating in the Read Your Way to Everest activity.

2. Challenge students to read 8,850 words or pages, or to read for 8,850 minutes. This challenge can be structured in a number of ways.

3. Choose a goal option from the list below:
(Teachers Please Note: Students should plan to achieve their reading goals in conjunction with Byron reaching the summit of Everest (sometime during the first two weeks of May). You may wish to have your students participate in online ceremonies and events in celebration of Byron reaching the summit and to celebrate your students reaching their goals.)

a) Division I - Read 8,850 words.

• Time student reading for one minute (or read to them for one minute), then count the number of words read in that time.
• Using this number of words per minute, calculate how many minutes you will have to read to make it to the top of Mt. Everest with the Everest 2000 team.
• When you have reached your goal, post your results to the website including number of words read, number of minutes of reading, the size of your team, etc.
• Remember that your team can be more than one class.

b) Division II - Read 8,850 words (as for Division I), OR read for 8,850 minutes.

If you choose to read 8,850 words, follow Division I instructions.

If you choose to read for 8,850 minutes:

• Decide whether reading will take place during school hours only, or whether students will do some of the reading as an at-home project.
• If students are going to read at home and school, teams can be a little smaller than if reading takes place only at school.
• Decide how much time will be dedicated per day or week at school.
• For reporting purposes, submit results to the web site that include: 1) whether you reached or exceeded 8,850 minutes of reading, 2) the number of pages or words read.

• Give students some choice regarding the number of students in each group.
• Consider having more than one group in the class for this challenge, depending on the in-class time you wish to dedicate to the project. Ask students to use a decision making model that would form a number of equal teams in the classroom.
• Form your teams.
• Time student reading over a given period to give them an idea of how long one person would have to read in order to cover 8,850 pages.
• Have students develop a strategy for calculating the number of words they read per minute. Use that number to estimate how long it would take them (individually) to read 8,850 pages.
• Spend time estimating the number of pages they can read in a reasonable period of time each day or week.

4. Decide on team size and whether teams will include students from other schools (telecollaborative connection). Please note that the teams can be a whole class, two classes or more. Students should have input in the decision.

5. Discuss the benefits of participating in the Read Your Way to Everest project, which include:

• Participating in setting and achieving goals with the Everest 2000 team.
• Motivating students to read more.
• Providing an audience for student achievement.
• Learning more about climbing Mount Everest, and/or gaining perspective on how to face life's daily challenges.

6. Choose books, based on the students reading and comprehension levels. The following suggestions for themes and topics are in keeping with the Everest expedition and the theme of "Goal Setting and Decision-Making." In discussion, relate basic themes to the challenges faced by people who take on physical, personal and/or emotional challenges such as climbing Mount Everest.

Reading topic suggestions:

• Human versus nature
• Human versus himself or herself
• Heroes
• Success stories
• Everest stories
• Adventures
• Making decisions Overcoming challenges or problems

7. Record student progress. For Division I, keep a class record of your progress. For Division II to IV, have students track the reading in their group on a spreadsheet or chart. They will need all their data for reporting in Phase 5. Data should include team members' names, titles of books read, and an ongoing tally of minutes, words or pages according to the goal you have chosen.

8. Remind students that they should make notes about their favorite books since they will be asked to write a book report on their favorite book later in the project.

Resources:
The Everest 2000 website features a list of books under Library. Please add any suggestions for appropriate books by e-mailing them to info@everest2000.ca.

BACK TO: Top