Where We Are In Place & Time

Oh how I have been anxiously awaiting our next science unit!! Finally the day has arrived!  I love science, I think that for some of our children this is the hook that gets them inquiring and really gain a love of learning. This next Unit of Inquiry is called Where We Are In Place and Time.  This unit will focus on how the innovations of today will affect our lives tomorrow.  We were lucky to be able to tie this into our science curriculum, as I have noticed that so many of the IB units are related to the social sciences.  As a tie in with the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) we will study these lines of inquiry:
 1. Identify and understand varied uses of energy.
 2. Necessity of conserving resources.
 3. Efficient uses of energy through inventions and machines.

If you haven't looked at the NGSS that is now out and published- I will tell you this unit is going to be extremely tough!  The students will be expected to understand how waves travel (amplitude & length), they will also need to understand the movement and transfer of energy, to name just a few learning goals.  We had to think about how to get the children engaged and thinking about energy in terms of application to their lives. I also wanted to find a way to bring in literacy, both informational text and fictional text.  ::::Cue the trumpets:::  Bring in the City of Ember and Rube Goldberg!!

We began reading this book last week and in an attempt to bridge our two units of inquiry we examined what form of government the City of Ember would be classified as.   The students thought that it was more like a dictatorship or monarchy than a democracy.  We also discussed what it would be like to have no choice in who you are to become.  This theme is a common theme is dystopian fiction, and many young adult novels of today so they had a lot of opinions on that topic! This book's main problem revolves around the generator failing and the city losing power- a great tie in with our science!  

So, day one launch was a reading of the first chapter and discussion of the questions listed above.  I also had them choose from a hat new jobs for the classroom (some more desirable than others), this was to in some way replicate what was happening in the Ember society.  

Up next: Building a catapult, and introduction to simple machines.  And, my all time favorite example of Rube Goldberg by Okay Go.