Donors Choose Project: Science is Seeing the Chicago Public Schools
August 22, 2013 4:07 PM Subscribe
Donors Choose: Science is Seeing This is the description of the proposed project from a very comitted teacher in the metro Chicago area-- it seems worthwhile to give to students!
There's a reason we have the common expression "seeing is believing." It's especially true in science, where an unexpected event becomes the launch point for a thoughtful conversation...
My students are urban middle school students. They are enthusiastic about learning science but have varying degrees of experience. My students eat up weird science facts but cannot explain why the world works the way it does.
My challenge is to capture students' imaginations while enabling them to thoughtfully create academic explanations through writing and speaking. Science writing is a great area of need for my students; they struggle to create an explanation longer than a paragraph. To become better writers, they need to experience better writing.
A document camera will have several important uses in my classroom:
1. Magnifying the world: Demonstrations are a great way to capture student interest. The problem with my classroom is that not all of the students can see the magic happening, especially when it's something like a chemical reaction. A document camera will allow me to blow up the image to a size where the kids can make meaningful observations.
2. Sharing our voices: As previously described, my students' writing needs work. One of the best ways to learn how to be good writers is to critique peer work. Currently, if I want to share a student's example, I have to write it out on a transparency or make a class set of photocopies to distribute the next day. The momentum is lost. A document camera allows real-time sharing of student work and dissemination of data.
To become participants in the global arena, my students must learn to become effective communicators. With a document camera, my students can become more engaged in the scientific content and can share their understandings in real time. Help me inspire the next generation of scientists!
My students are urban middle school students. They are enthusiastic about learning science but have varying degrees of experience. My students eat up weird science facts but cannot explain why the world works the way it does.
My challenge is to capture students' imaginations while enabling them to thoughtfully create academic explanations through writing and speaking. Science writing is a great area of need for my students; they struggle to create an explanation longer than a paragraph. To become better writers, they need to experience better writing.
A document camera will have several important uses in my classroom:
1. Magnifying the world: Demonstrations are a great way to capture student interest. The problem with my classroom is that not all of the students can see the magic happening, especially when it's something like a chemical reaction. A document camera will allow me to blow up the image to a size where the kids can make meaningful observations.
2. Sharing our voices: As previously described, my students' writing needs work. One of the best ways to learn how to be good writers is to critique peer work. Currently, if I want to share a student's example, I have to write it out on a transparency or make a class set of photocopies to distribute the next day. The momentum is lost. A document camera allows real-time sharing of student work and dissemination of data.
To become participants in the global arena, my students must learn to become effective communicators. With a document camera, my students can become more engaged in the scientific content and can share their understandings in real time. Help me inspire the next generation of scientists!
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