The Statue of Liberty

Did you see that colossal statue?

Discovering New York, you get to one of the most famous places: The Statue of Liberty. The colossal Statue of Liberty welcomes all travellers to American shores and it is placed in the southern side of Manhattan in New York Harbour. The statue was dedicated in 1886. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. Liberty Island is maintained by the National Park Service and can be reached by ferry.

What about you? Would you like to go there on your summer holidays in the future?

Tysto. *Statue with Manhattan in the background* (CC0)

At the end of the session, you will have:

learnt a lot of details about The Statue of Liberty.
learnt the differences between past simple and present perfect.
started your collaborative Google Site in groups about the city of New York.

Continue with your posts on Twitter (#taskbiography and #EDIAnewyork). Have you ever visited a statue? and have you ever travelled by ferry? Take a look at the video Statue of Liberty and discover this amazing monument.

finleyholiday. Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island - 2 minute HD tour (Licencia estándar de YouTube)

This statue is next to Ellis Island, the first island immigrants saw when they arrived to New York in the past. You can also take a look at The Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island foundation official website. It is especially interesting to find out a little bit about her history.

You can also send them a tweet telling them that you have visited the island and the Statue virtually and a detail about it that you have learnt: Official Ellis Island - Statue of Liberty Twitter. The 'Rubric to assess a Tweet' can help you do a good job in this social network.

Remember that the Statue of Liberty must be part of the route at your Google Sites map.

I have never been to New York but I once went to a musical

You probably have never been to the Statue of Liberty but maybe you went once to a very special place for you. When we want to express experiences in our lives, things that we have done, etc, we use the present perfect tense. It is formed from the present tense of the verb have and the past participle of a lexical verb.

We use the present perfect tense for something we have done several times in the past and continue to do and for something that started in the past and continues in the present.

johnhain. Statue (CC0)

You can find more information about this verbal tense at the website present perfect simple.

On the other hand, remember that we use the Past Simple to express past events or actions that have no connection to the present. Sometimes, you may need to make a contrast between these two verbal tenses. In order to know their use in the same sentence, the resource Comparision between the past simple with the present perfect can give you more ideas to use the both tenses.

Challenge: English-speaking cities

Challenge Step 1: Open up a new Google Site and share it with your group

The challenge in this project is a Google site about English-speaking cities. In this challenge, we are going to work in groups of 2/3 people. The first step is to create the site using Google sites.

The rubric to evaluate a google map will be used to evaluate your work. Remember that you have to evaluate it once you have finished creating the route with the ten stops of each city.

You can have extra help watching the following video about registering and using Google Sites. One of the members of the group is going to be the leader and is going to open up the site and share it with the rest of the members of the group. Thus, the other members will be able to edit the site as well.

Bradley Lands. Google Sites Tutorial for Education (CC BY)

After having created the site, check that the whole group can edit it and start designing a landing page with the title English-Speaking Cities.
In this first page, you have to describe what your group is going to create collaboratively: a website with information about 10 of the most important English - speaking cities in the world, one city per project. In this project, we are going to work with the city of New York.
If you have created the google site previously, using another project from this series, you only have to add a new page to your Google site.
As you have work in groups of 2/3 people, you can also use the lino website to brainstorm your ideas, collect your links and reach an agreement on which digital materials you are going to use at your Google Site for New York even though you are working at different locations.

It is now time to start working collaboratively with your group. Remember to always follow the steps. That way it will be easier for you to produce the final product of the challenge. Your teacher can always help you with your doubts.

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