Spoto High - Genealogy DNA Project
My name is Michael Mars and I teach World History at Spoto High School in Riverview, Florida. I have a unique project that I would like to carry out this year with my students and I need your help. Spoto High School is predominantly African American and Hispanic (Cuban). Additionally, the socio-economic status (SES) of many of these students places them on a near poverty level. In an attempt to have the students make a connection to history via their families I conducted a family tree project with several classes. However, I discovered that a majority of the students had little knowledge of their grandparents (and at times even their parents) let alone their distant ancestry. It occurred to me that if they didn’t know their own history how could I expect them to care about world history or anything else going on currently.
With this in mind I have decided to carry out an ancestry project with the students in my classes, a total of approximately 150 boys and girls of varied cultures and ethnicities. Like any child these students face daily obstacles in both their academic and personal lives. However, knowing where they come from, even if they don’t know their immediate families, can provide them with a sense of belonging they may not enjoy as those children from higher SES more often do. This concept of belonging will allow them to connect to both world history and the world itself, one that is constructed of a society that is becoming more globalized as we speak. Additionally the students would conduct research of historical events based on their genetic ancestry in order to further connect to that global society
With the help of FamilyTreeDNA.com I plan on utilizing DNA testing to accomplish this project but, the cost of the project overall will be a total of $7000 for all five of my classes. Spoto is a Title 1 school and many of these students don’t even get three meals a day let alone money for DNA testing. This project has the potential to make our world smaller for 150 underprivileged students by finding out more about their ancestry and where they come from. Your help would be instrumental in helping young African American and Hispanic students find out more about their past than just slavery (Spoto is 40% African American and 40% Hispanic) as well as showing all of them that we are part of a world community.
