Submitted by: Donna Forester
Collaborators: Melanie Phipps, Susan Howe
School: Tuckahoe Middle School
Summary
Tuckahoe Middle School students practiced using Elluminate tools to interact with students from Germany and Romania during the first class. Students from all three countries introduced themselves and said a little bit about their school and country. They asked and respond to questions using the virtual whiteboard tools. During the second lesson, students from Tuckahoe, Romania and Germany used Elluminate to participated in the Lost in the Amazon lesson about deforestation in Brazil. The lesson gave students the opportunity to discuss the global impact on the earth’s environment. The third lesson, students finished their calculations of data they gathered to discussed misconceptions about climate and climate change, and explored the Climate Kids website. TMS students used the information they gathered on the global impact of climate on drinking water to coordinate a fundraiser to purchase Lifestraws to help developing countries.
TIPC Ratings
Developing. Students selected websites to collect information needed to create banners and presentation to demonstrate why Lifestraw are needed in developing countries to provide the people with clean, safe drinking water.
Approaching. Students communicate beyond the classroom in collaboration with students from Romania and Germany using Elluminate. They use satellite images that are accurate for learning, but not in real time. Students share knowledge globally as they discuss their thoughts and answers regarding a biome in Brazil with the international students in the virtual lesson. Students work together in groups with a computer, select the appropriate tools for the Elluminate lesson, and discuss in class how it is not easy to solve real-world problems in regards to global impact on the environment. After the lesson, students coordinated a fundraiser to raise money to send Lifestraws to people in third world countries who have poor quality drinking water. Students collaborated and created a presentation along with an informative tag to attach to silly straws to be sold for a one dollar donation to go towards purchasing Lifestraws.
Approaching. Students answer open-ended questions about misconceptions of climate change, and use a variety of resources (satellite images, map coordinates, handout of information, Nasa website) to draw conclusions based on clear evidence. Students use the information they have learned about climate change to organize a fundraiser to sell silly straws to purchase Lifestraws for third world countries. They create presentations to encourage purchases of the Lifestraws by the student body.
Students collaborated in groups to create an original presentation that will inform the student body of their fundraiser to sell silly straw to encourage donation to purchase Lifestraws. Students also worked in groups to create their logging map in order to determine where illegal logging was taking place, and assess the damage done by illegal logging.
Student Artifact
