INTRODUCTION
This project is put together by Cecilia Hunter (Maths) and Florence Zanocchi (Science/Social Studies) 6th year teachers in Punta Chica and the invaluable help of our mentor, Inés Cazenave, 5th year teacher in Punta Chica as well.
Both Science and Maths are subjects that definitely need a lot of thinking on the student’s behalf. In the process of constructing new knowledge, students need to get engaged; making hypothesis, collecting relevant information, choosing different strategies to achieve new goals, exploring concepts in depth and in an enquiry driven manner- all necessary for effective learning to take place in the classroom.
Blending everything together to make everyone’s learning visible and significant.
Representations and models in Science need the invaluable help of Maths in order to become visible. One of our challenges is to make students´thinking so visible that they are able to share their findings with confidence in a variety of graphical and mathematically accurate representations.
We can no longer think of separate compartments for our subjects. Instead, learning through projects has become part of our daily work at school.
With ¨To Infinity and Beyond!¨ we face a challenge: Astronomy. Understanding the world beyond us. Understanding the concept of infinity. Understanding big numbers and using scientific notation to represent them. Using graphs to compare information… These are only some of the many units and activities involved in our project.
| SCIENCE | MATHS |
| Distances in space | Scientific Notation
Understanding the notion of infinity |
| Sun trajectory | Line graphs – comparing trajectories in different parts of the world
Pythagoras´theorem |
| Temperature ranges stars/planets
Hypothesis distance from sun vs. temperature |
Bar graphs, mean, median, mode, averages
Proportionality |
| Planet sizes compared to the Earth´s | Percentages / Scale drawing |
| Planning their own galaxy | Scale drawing using Geometry elements
Problem solving App to design it. |
We are aware that not all students learn in the same ways, within the same amount of time or with the same depth, but we still want to challenge each and every student, getting them all actively involved in their learning processes. To achieve this goal, our instructional strategies will be:
- Project based learning
- Visible thinking
- Assessment for learning
- Differentiated instruction
As a final product, students will have to:
- Design their credential as ASTRONOMERS/ASTRONAUTS
- Design a scaled galaxy
- Present graphical representations of the information collected and their conclusions based on the initial hypothesis.
Categories: Professional Development Contest 2016
Love those astronauts!!!