Integrating Lessons
Hi Everyone,
Chris has asked me to post this to the blog for her. She expects you all to have responded as usual (to the group and each other) by Friday, November 14. With the holiday mid-week, this should be possible.
As you are compiling documentation for the Positive Impact Assignment, what are your ideas/plans for integrating math in a lesson and science in a different lesson? Eric and Talitha, you get to share how you will incorporate science into a math lesson, and a content area other than math for the second lesson. Provide helpful suggestions as you respond to each other.
I hope you are all doing well and enjoying late autumn in Germany! :-) Heidi
posted by Heidi @ 2:33 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
I'm actually an overachiever and have my integration lessons done. I have to proof read and finalize the lesson plans and reflection for one of the two activities, but all the student work is collected. :)
One activity that I collected data for is a "capture/recapture" topic. This activity integrated biology as biologists need proportions and ratios in order to estimate the total population of a certain type of an animal given certain information such as percept tagged or the ratio of tagged to untagged in a sample. This was a cool activity because the students were able to have an "hands on" guide where they "went fishing" -- tagged fish, and then made estimates for the total number of fish in their "pond". It was pretty neat and the kids were excited about it.
I also had fun integrating art into my lab class. Proportions were the theme as we looked at three different definitions of proportions --- the one in the dictionary, the art definition, and the math definition. We then were able to discuss the similarities and differences and view some examples! After that - students got to make their own art work using proportions! The kids had fun with the activity and I enjoyed grading it!
We've also had some other fun integrations such as skits for math review, some did songs, etc. :)
I tried to post this yesterday and I got an error message in German. Grrr. You'd think I'd learn to save my posts in Word first, but I'm not going to do that.
As for the integration lesson. I did my science integration during a pumpkin math party for Halloween. Sandy told me about the pumpkin math party she does every year and I realized it worked for science integration. Part of the party includes measuring a pumpkin, predicting how many seeds will be inside, then opening it up to find out how many there are. For the math integration I'm doing a lesson the week after next where the students are growing plants and they will be measuring the plant growth. For the positive impact on student learning I had the student make a T-Chart of living and nonliving things before starting our science unit on living things. This is the only lesson we've had so far in the unit, but I'm hoping that by the end of the unit I will be able to prove that the students have learned something.
I'll admit, I am jealous that Talitha has finished her lessons. I feel like this last month over here has creeped up on me. I also like the idea of incorporating art into math. The proportions idea sounds brilliant, especially considering how much of an impact proportions has in both subjects.
I have had many thoughts on how to incorporate both math and science into other subjects, and have actually done this several times already. Me being me however, I never made any of them official for this assignment. I am now making solid plans to carry out these lessons. For the integration of science I am planning on working with Eric Carle’s Hello, Red Fox. It is a wonderful book, which talks about complementary colors and the color wheel. I have not quite decided what the lesson will look like but it will focus on Eric Carle’s book and will also have to do with art. I suppose in the end it will be a literacy/art/science lesson. I plan on having the students mix colors as well as making their own complementary color cards.
For the integration of math I am going to have the students either grow their own plants and measure the growth or have them make some kind of graph. Most likely I will do a combination of the two. My kids have been working on bar graphs and really have a lot of fun with them! My impact on student learning is going to take place during a unit in life science having to do with plants. Those are my ideas, I would love any suggestions or input :)
Kelsi,
I think it is great that you integrated science into your pumpkin party! It is great that you can have a fun party and still have learning taking place. I think it is important that there is learning going on from the minute the kids walk into the room until the minute they leave. At the same time, kids need to have fun, so why not do both at the same time!! I also think it is so cool how integration of all subjects happens all of the time and even if we don’t realize it. I think your math integration is great too! I actually had the same idea because we are just starting a unit on plants. Good luck!
I incorporated both Math and Science into our recent Language Arts unit 'Everyday Heroes.' This unit talks a lot about people doing everyday things that make a difference such as recycling.
For Science, I wanted to show the effects of pollution and pesticides on our water and how it affects not only humans but animals and plantlife. The class was split into groups of 3 and were each given a tray half filled with sand. We then filled the bottom with water and put 'pesticides' (food coloring at the top where the sand was. Then it rained (water was poured). Eventually, the 'pesticides' made it to the 'ocean' water below. We then discussed why pesticides are often used, the pros and the cons. We then discussed what alternatives there are.
I really enjoyed this activity because the kids enjoyed it so much. In an elementary classroom, getting the kids moving is always great and really gets the kids thinking.
With Math, I piggybacked off of a project that two of my own students accomplished! There are two girls in my class who got bored over the summer and organized a bake sale. They then donated all of the profits to a soup kitchen in a nearby town! (Isn't that great?) So I decided that the students should mathematically plan out a fundraiser for a good cause. Each group had to explain WHO they were raising money for, WHAT they were going to do and HOW they were going to do it. We discussed start up costs and profit. They had to show me exactly how much each material they needed would cost and how long or how many services they would need to provide to attain the goal they chose.
I have actually tried to implement a lot of lessons like this that include Math planning because I feel it is a skill that many people need but do not have. We have discussed using a gift card at a resturaunt where they had to plan out they meal including alternate options. We have also discussed money saving techniques.
I am a really strong believer in intergration of all subjects because it really brings those subjects into a new light and keeps them lively. It also gives you the opportunity to incorporate life skills that many teachers don't often include because they assume they are being taught at home. Which we all know, is not often the case.
Talitha, I really liked how you incorporated art into your math lesson. Math is a tough subject for many kids to get into and art may be that outlet for them. Also, I feel thatr overall, art is not used enough in our classrooms, so kudos to you!
I had a hard time choosing which lesson to use for the integrations because every lesson we teach has another subject integrated into it.
In Social Studies, we were studying climate and how it affects what people do in different areas of the world. I found the climate (average temperatures) of Heidelberg over a 12-month period and the students graphed the temperatures on a line graph. The students know that line graphs show data over a period of time so this was a great lead in to talking about the climate in their home town.
For the science integration lesson, I used our Earthworm Unit. The students had to do a research paper on various topics about earthworm such as their diets, habitat, their senses, what they eat, their predators, etc. This brought in Language Art skills within researching, writing, editing, and expressing themselves through an oral presentation.
I like what Kacie said about always using integration throughout every subject. She mentioned incorporating life skills that many students are unaware of. I think it is also beneficial to include problem solving skills, decision making, and opportunities for the children to be active classroom citizens. By integrating subject matter, students see that everything they are learning is related and can transfer that to the real world and the connection between different areas of life.
Hello Colleagues!
I have collected all samples for my student work (including a pre-test, reflection, and post-test). I also have three formal lesson plans typed up and ready to go. I have taught all the lessons and am just going back at this point and “formally” typing everything up. I have integrated math and science into my classroom numerous times. I am lucky enough to be working with another student teacher who I am able to communicate with how we can integrate our different content areas. Her suggestions have helped me many times when thinking of ways to make connections between classes.
I actually taught a lesson today where we went through a review packet together as a class. The students have never seen what they are going to be tested on because it is given by the social studies department throughout the year. It is supposed to evaluate the students on what they already know and is not a reflection of our teaching. I watched my teacher teach it the first time around and decided that this was a great way to integrate math into my lesson. There is a section of the review that was a little misleading to students that dealt with a pie graph. I knew after talking to the science teacher that she had already went over the pie charts with the students, so I knew they had some background knowledge. I asked the students to give me estimates of what religion was prevalent in Africa. The students were to look at the graph and come to a conclusion. We got in a pretty heated conversation about whether the Hindu religion was 80% or 75%. The students then split the graph into quadrants and decided that it was more than 75% because there were three quadrants and then some, which would equal more than 75%.
I integrated science into one of my lessons in social studies. I had students make a food web by acting as different parts of the food web and connecting with other animals/plants that they would eat. The students really enjoyed this activity. They were able to get up and move around in the room, but at the same time understand the circle of life.
I am also planning on incorporating science again in a future lesson. I assumed that my students knew that water freezes at 32* F, but apparently my students had no idea. They needed this knowledge to fill out their homework correctly, which I discovered was a problem when only 10 out of 45 knew the correct freezing point. I am planning on teaching a mini-lesson on freezing points in Celsius and Fahrenheit next week.
Fiona,
I really was wondering what grade you are teaching because I think that would put a lot of things into context. I totally know how you feel about that last month speeding by. I wish I would have been on top of everything from the beginning of my teaching experience, but I also feel that it is more useful at this point to complete the work because I am more experienced and able to reflect on my own teaching.
I also think it is interesting how you are teaching science through a book. I would have students make educated guesses, or a hypothesis about what colors they will end up with when they combine them together. However, I am assuming that you are teaching younger students based on your previous posts. This way you could really integrate science and learning how to make educated guesses. Then you could have all of the students try adding the colors together. I think adding many colors together would be really interesting for the students to see. It could end up very messy, but I bet you it would be worth it. Just an idea, but good luck!
Amber,
I liked how you took math into context and talked about pie charts and statistics and how they can be misleading. It is super important to understand that numbers aren't always straight forward. It tends to be something people don't get until they understand the math. So it's cool that you not only taught them English and Math, but also critical thinking skills! :)
In all honesty I find math fairly boring. It is the integration into other subjects that is the most exciting part of math I feel. Mathematics is one of the most useful tools students will learn in high school. That’s the problem though it’s a tool in which students are taught the structure; however they are not able to apply it.
There is a ton of ways to incorporate mathematics into science. Talitha and I did this together when we were doing proportions. We made a section doing recapture and capture techniques of fish in class. It was pretty fun to do, because my dad did this when he worked for the forestry department. It was fun to bring up personal experiences like this when teaching the lesson, because it made it more relevant to the students.
I had them get into groups and do projects. One involved pieces of paper where we put a bunch of blue ones into a cup. The students would then take them out and replace them with pink pieces of paper to represent the tagged fish. They then used the ratio to determine the number of fish originally in the cup.
I then tried to do another lesson when we where studying scaling. Since, we are in Germany I thought that it would be a good idea to incorporate a little bit of local culture. I decided to have the students print out maps of where they would like to travel in Europe. Then I had them scale the map we printed off of map quest to a giant piece of paper. They all had to tell me why they wanted to travel to the different places they where going to go before I let them put it on the map. I learned some cool and interesting things about the places around here doing that.
Overall the activities where pretty fun and even helped drive in some of the concepts, so I think they were a success!
Kacie,
That seems like a sweet project you did with pesticides. I remeber reading about that in highschool but a project like yours would have been so much cooler. Plus it would have made it more meaningful.
I’ve already incorporated math into my teaching, but I am still working on how to incorporate science.
For math, I used a chart that had a list of items that are essential to our daily life (various clothing items, children’s toys, household items, medical costs, fuel costs, etc). In one column, I provided students with how much each item would cost back in the depression era and in another column, I required students to go on the web to find out how much those items would cost today. Initially, my students were astounded by how cheap everything was during the depression as compared to today’s prices. However, when I provided them with the average monthly income of a depression era worker with that of a worker today, they began to see the significance. I had them add up the cost of the depression era items (so they could estimate the monthly expenses) and add up the cost of a month’s worth of our expenses today. We then created a ratio for each, which ultimately indicated that nearly all of a depression era worker’s money was spent on essential items, with nearly no money left over for emergencies or unexpected costs, wheras workers today have more money left over and are less likely to suffer a terrible set-back if an unexpected cost were to arise. I used this lesson when I began a novel titled Bud, Not Buddy with my Read 180 class of struggling readers. The book is about an orphaned child who is shuffled around from home to home during the depression. I wanted the students to understand how crippling the economic crisis was for the characters in the book and how that crisis would impact the main character’s experiences throughout the novel.
I have not yet incorporated science, but perhaps I could apply to scientific method to a story. After the unit I am currently doing, I will focus my attention on this requirement.
Kacie, I really love what you did with the pesticides. Students should learn as soon as possible about the harm that is done to the environment, and this is a great way of showing them rather than simply telling them that it is a major problem. I’m sure it was also very fun for them to do the experiment and work with the food coloring, water, and sand.
Hi Everyone! This is my second attempt to post on this blog. Heidi thinks I'm crazy that I can't remember how to do this.
I've been very excited to see how creative you are with the integration lessons. Kelsi's lesson with pumpkins and science was math as well. I'm guessing this was a bit messy (and thus fun for all those tactile kids!). I love the idea of mathematics and art and agree that this may be an entry into math for students whose skills are better aligned with art.
I totally agree with Eric that mathematics as a stand alone only benefits those who are enthralled with the idea of math. Most of us need application for math to come alive. Schools set some crazy artificial boundaries that I believe actually get in the way of learning.
We've not had snow yet, but I understand you have had some. We did, however, manage to keep the Apple Cup in Pullman (Go Cougs!) so all is less dire than it otherwise was for the fall and football.
I hope each of you has a great week. It really is amazing how close you are to being done.
Happy Thanksgiving, Cori
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