Earlier in the year our grade 8 Humanities students completed a project where they retold a chosen novel in a graphic novel form. Our two grade 8 Humanities teachers, Dave Scott and Jaime Groeller, recently compiled all the materials they used for this project into an “integrated inquiry resource.” If you have an iPad, iPod… Continue reading Creating Graphic Novels
One of the wonderful educational tools that recent technology affords is digital storytelling. Applicable in a wide variety of subject areas and curriculum connections, digital storytelling provides a medium for students to demonstrate their understanding in rich ways through the act of combining of images, text, and sounds. This grade 8 example was completed for… Continue reading Digital Storytelling: Student Exemplar
Here at the Calgary Science School we build our understanding of inquiry-based learning around the Inquiry Rubric developed in conjunction with the Galileo Educational Network. To help unpack how the Galileo Inquiry Rubric is lived out in specific projects from our school, we’ve compiled the following list of projects tied to particular elements of the… Continue reading Illustrative Examples of Inquiry-Based Learning
Last year our grade 8 math teachers held a math fair with their students, supported by the Galileo Educational Network. Students were introduced to a number of classic mathematical problems and brainteasers, and were allowed to choose what medium would best represent their solutions. The Galileo site has a number of resources on math fairs,… Continue reading Podcasting Mathematical Understanding
Over the last few weeks, our grade 8 students have been working on virtual Rube Goldberg Machines, using a physics simulator called Phun. The planning documents and rubric for the project can be found here. For the assessment of the work, the teachers really wanted to focus on the students’ understanding of the various simple… Continue reading Virtual Machines: Final Projects
Our grade 8 Science students are just starting on a project building digital Goldberg machines. To accomplish this, the students will be using an application called Phun, which is a free, 2D physics simulator. Phun allows students to digitally build and combine a variety of objects including gears, wheels, springs, etc and to control different… Continue reading Creating Virtual Machines
As described in previous posts, here and here, our grade 8’s have been working through a study of the Italian Renaissance, examining the conditions that existed, and then making comparisons with life in contemporary Calgary. In order to help bridge the gap between the Italian Renaissance and contemporary Calgary, we made use of a number… Continue reading Grade 8: Renaissance Debates
Here at the Science School, I would say that Google Docs has become one of the tech tools that has had the greatest uptake across our classrooms. Over the last couple years, students and teachers have begun using this tool to take collaborative notes and study guides, peer edit across classes and grades, make group… Continue reading Google Docs versus Wikis
Our Grade 8 study of Worldviews is in full swing. As written before, the students have created a survey with the hopes of gathering global data on worldview trends. The students worked with Rob Pegg to learn the important elements of survey design. We then had our grade 9 students critique the grade 8 survey… Continue reading Grade 8 Worldview Survey is Live!
Our grade 8 students are currently in the middle of large-scale study, combining both the Worldview and Renaissance components of the Social Studies curriculum. This study contains two sections, first the creation of a worldview survey, and then a study on the Renaissance, comparing the Italian City States to the conditions in contemporary Calgary. To… Continue reading Grade 8: Creating Effective Surveys
