The "Johnny Harris" Project: bringing Social Studies to Life with Maps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_qcvqrvu44

Johnny Harris is a journalist and YouTuber with over a million followers, known for traveling the world to capture and share compelling stories. Watching his work, I found myself asking a question: What if we could create the next generation of Johnny Harrises with a group of third graders?

To answer that, we decided to adapt a standard social studies unit into a Project-Based Learning (PBL) experience. For those unfamiliar, PBL is an educational method where students engage in authentic, real-world projects. It fosters critical thinking and problem-solving by asking students to actively construct knowledge and connect it to practical applications.

Connecting Standards to the Real World When designing this unit, I looked at two specific "Enduring Understandings" from the curriculum:

1. Maps help us understand and appreciate the interconnectedness of our world.
2. Changing conditions may influence the way people modify and adapt to their environment and basic needs.

As a learning designer, my first step is always to ask: "What professional uses these skills?" Usually, I have to do some research. But this time, the answer was immediate. Johnny Harris does exactly this. He creates engaging storytelling that informs and entertains, often describing his work as "using maps to help compliment those stories."

The Classroom Process

We set out to help our third graders capture global stories of changing conditions through video and maps.

We started by analyzing a specific Harris video: “How this border transformed a subcontinent.” Students observed firsthand how he strategically uses maps to provide context — zooming out to show the big picture of interconnectedness, and zooming in to show ground-level activities.

Inspired by this, the students began their own production process.

• Research: They studied global stories about how people adapt to their environments.
• Storyboarding: Using graphic organizers, they mapped out their narratives.
• Digital Mapping: They utilized tools like Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Google Earth to capture imagery. They even used a web-based tool called Ethermap (suggested by my colleague Komal) to create specific location markers.

The result was a collection of “Johnny Harris-like” videos created entirely by eight and nine-year-olds.

For me, the joy lies in taking abstract standards and connecting them to authentic tasks. It makes the learning come alive and shows students that their work is relevant to the real world. A huge thank you to the Grade 3 team for collaborating on this, and for being open to trying something new.

Stay learning in perpetual beta.