Westlake Elementary Students Become Immigrants for a Day

WESTLAKE, OH - The experience of immigrants trying to enter America has never been more relevant. A Westlake fourth grade teacher found a unique way to teach her kids the history of US immigration via an Ellis Island Immigration Simulation Project held on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Holly Lane Elementary School was morphed into a faux Ellis Island. Students acted as immigrants from various nations including Syria, Russia, Ireland, Italy, Poland, and China. The students were asked to learn the details of a specific ethnic family and what caused them to leave their home nation.

The students would then walk to different stations and undergo interviewing process, medical and eye examinations, and some were made to plead for admittance in front of the Immigration and Naturalization Service panel of judges. High school students acted as immigration officers, inspectors and physicians, the school district says.

Students were meant to learn the ins and outs of immigration, the motivation for people leaving their home nation, the experience of traveling to the US by ship and then going through Ellis or Angel Island, and the process of settling in a new country. The school district says students will ultimately be asked to compare and contrast the immigrant experience over time.

The project was created with assistance from Westlake High School Honors American History students.

Hun Piazza, the organizing teacher, said the project was designed to help children retain information.

“Projects gives students the chance to apply the skills they learn in school to personally relevant and real-world situations,” Piazza said in a statement. “Students also learn how to think critically, solve problems, work in teams and make presentations. These skills will help students succeed in the future, both in school and in today’s work world.”

The project emerged from the fourth grade International Baccalaureate Planner: Where We are in Place and Time – an inquiry into orientation in place and time; personal histories; homes and journeys; discoveries, explorations and migrations of humankind; the relationships between the interconnectedness of individuals and civilizations, from local and global perspectives, the district says.

Photos from Westlake Schools