21st+Century+Math

This page is devoted to activities that involve 21st century lessons for Algebra I, English, Science, and Art.

A list of lessons that we have investigated that we think can be used in our Algebra I curriculum. __**Illumination:**__
 * 1) Sundials: impact and uses for time, history, art, and mathematics
 * 2) Sunlight: illumination of the Earth, moon, stars
 * 3) Solar Power:

__**Literacy / Numeracy**__ - In //Three Cups of Tea//, Greg Mortenson makes three powerful statements that speak to me: 1. ** "Terror doesn't happen because people decide to hate us...It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they had a reason to choose life over death. 2.** ** "Once you've educated boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in the cities... But the girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they've learned." 3.** **"We may not be educated, but we are not stupid."** These quotes speak to me on several levels. If true, then we ought to be able to suppress if not stop terror by educating the children of these countries. Of course, the education of girls would be a passion of mine. > (I'm hoping that the development of these will improve my students understanding and numeracy as well.) > I also want to know how they built that bridge. > >>>>  ||   ||
 * **Math** - Students could develop video / stories to help improve basic math skill and numeracy - I personally
 * would like to see Sesame Street-like videos and stories where the topics are adding fractions, working with percents, long division, working with integers, etc.
 * **(From Peyten)** I love those three quotes as well. Greg M. is a hero of mine. ;) I feel like one important part of 21st century literacy is that we make the curriculum **RELEVANT** to students in that they can immediately see how knowing and learning this information can have an immediate and positive effect on their lives. Given that many junior high (and high school) students don't have the developement yet to understand future consequences--I think it is particularly important to give them tasks that speak to them in the here and now. If we use this kind of problem-based learning then we can "sneak in" the rest of the curiculum. I know I didn't become an English teacher because I felt a driving need to explicate the comma splice to high school students and eradicate it from their writing; however, it is necessary for me to teach the comma splice to my students so that they can communicate more effectively to many different audiences. I can see great potential in thematic teaching like this!
 * Also, one of my conceptions of 21st century learning is that we guide the students toward relevant, interesting, and attainable goals. I think that this hunger project could really be something cool for the students and would provide a relevant, interesting, and attainable goal for them to reach!
 * __Hunger__**
 * **Math** - Data could be collected online to have students visualize statistics and work on the student's ability to interpret graphs.
 * **Science** - Students could study the effects of hunger and starvation on the body. They could contrast these with the effects of obesity.
 * **Art** - Students could create an ad campaign to bring an awareness of hunger to our community.
 * **English (From Peyten)**- since part of reading the word is also learning how to read the word in all kind of texts, we could work with the art department to develop some kind of media literacy where students learn the art of persuasion (rhetorical techniques, developing an argument via organization, etc) and also examine the connections between reading media and reading literature since both (in many cases) try to "persuade" the audience. Also, English classes could incorporate teaching expository, technical, and creative writing in working with the science, math and art classes.
 * Random fun note: there is a great vocabulary website called [|www.freerice.com] that helps the kids practice their vocabulary. Every word they get right gives 20 grains of rice to people in starving countries. It's pretty neat! ;)
 * **Bible** The Bible is all over Hunger as a topic. For example, the seven good years of harvest and the seven years of famine = conservation, planning, production management and reserves. Manna in the wilderness = take only what you need. Feeding the 5000 = the multiplier effect of sharing. Last Supper = comming to a common table/table fellowship. "Feed my sheep" = our call to recognize the needs of others and to respond to those needs. Jill pointed out that for many women in oppressive countries there is a hunger for education which takes us back to literacy and numeracy. Given their plight how might we then interpret Christ's call to "feed my sheep."
 * **Economics/Writing Workshop** (from Bo) - Could the 8th Grade Leadership Project [Affective Curriculum] provide the "Blood Project" theme(s)? For some time, I have hoped that there might be even one non-departmental course in the JH (a return to The Naturalist Course thinking). What better place to have it than in the capstone experience of JH - 8th grade (as a start). So, I headed this section "Economics/Writing Workshop," but I would challenge us and the other Econ 8/WW teachers to consider that the course does not have to fit into this sort of pre-existing box/paradigm. Rather could the new course be a hybrid that kept the best of economics and writing and threaded those "ways of seeing" with the math, science, art, etc. that can combine and synthesize to help us all better understand and address HUNGER? For instance, demand and supply can offer the framework and scaffolding by which to study some of the economic/financial aspects of hunger. I think of //Guns, Germs, and Steel//, and I imagine the students asking the questions and seeking the answers about why hunger manifests itself more significantly and pervasively in certain parts of the world. Woven into the demand and supply is the mathematics, in a practical, real utilization - with data collection driven by what the students are questioning and asking about. Also threaded and integrated into this research are explorations of different hunger organizations and how they use visual, auditory, and emotional appeals to reach those that are watching, listening, and caring about ways to address hunger - so here lies the potential for "English" and "art."
 * However, I hope we will eventually stray away from feeling the need to say that now we are doing the math part, now the art part, now the English part. The brain integrates these things endlessly and seemlessly, but our school does not...because of an industrial age model of efficient delivery and division of labor. Our specialization is limiting our ability to create a classroom that synthesizes, creates with multiple perspectives, and expresses a whole understanding. BUT, it does not HAVE to be so. In Howard Gardner's //5 Minds for the Future//, he writes of the disciplined and the synthesizing and the creative minds. To those he adds the respectful and the ethical minds. He speaks not of the math mind, the English mind, the science mind, etc. So, we could also integrate and weave together the cognitive curriculum and the affective curriculum...and stop thinking of these as distinct curricula. Perhaps the period that is currently filled by Economics 8/Writing Workshop could provide the bridge to this design of teaching and learning. Perhaps we could have some departmental and some interdisciplinary course offerings. We could resist being all of one or all of the other, but we could be both/and. OR...if you like the current, departmental paradigm, then we have 3,500,000 hits on GOOGLE for "Economics of Hunger" as a different starting place.
 * (From Peyten) I like the idea of having non-departmental classes. Instead of taking Math, English, and Science, perhaps the students will sign up to take thematically based classes that last for most of a day.
 * [[image:end_hunger_network.jpg]]
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