Students will launch the Justinian investigation by testing how different rules shape decisions, begin comparing Justinian-style laws with familiar school and community rules, and gather initial questions and evidence pathways for later research and simulation work.

Students will refine a focused investigation question about Justinian’s reign, build a workable method for comparing historical and modern rules, test the quality of their evidence plans through peer critique, and submit a team investigation plan that prepares them for evidence collection in the next phase.

Students will collect, verify, and organize historical and modern-rule evidence in traceable notes so they can later analyze how Justinian’s reign influenced ideas about law, fairness, and government. They will strengthen evidence quality through source evaluation, peer critique, and a midpoint checkpoint that confirms each team has usable quotes, summaries, and rule comparisons tied to its investigation question.

Students will interpret their collected evidence, build a law and fairness comparison board, test their claims through critique and conference feedback, and finalize a one-minute defense for a class community case using Justinian-based and modern rule comparisons.

Students will present their Justinian’s Justice Fair comparison boards and class community case decisions to families, peers, and a local lawyer or civic leader, defend their reasoning with historical evidence, and reflect on how Justinian’s legal reforms connect to modern ideas about law, fairness, and government.