Tag: hands-on learning

Math, Movement, and Mirth: Students Tackle Real-World Problems

Stacey Tomkiel, Chair of the Middle School Math Department

One of my goals as a math teacher is to show students that the concepts and skills we’re studying have practical, real-world applications. To accomplish this, I’ve devised several activities that give students the chance to get out of the classroom, move from place to place, and interact with their peers – in short, to have fun as they learn.

During “The Amazing Math Race,” for instance, an exercise based on the popular adventure-reality TV show, I break up my eighth-grade algebra students into groups and give each group a passport book and a math problem involving quadratics.  

• After each group solves the problem, they glue the solution into their group’s passport and get a clue about who will give them the next problem: “She greets visitors to the school.”

• The students rush to the lobby of Nicholson Hall, where School Receptionist Kim Miles gives them a second problem. After solving it, they paste their solution into the passport and receive another clue: “He runs Big Tech on campus.”

• The students sprint to the basement of the Roberts Center, where Director of Technology Dan Bateson gives them another problem. After finding the solution and pasting it into their passport, they race back to the classroom to solve one final problem, paste it into their passport, and give it to me for my final inspection. 

• The first team to return the passport with all the problems solved correctly wins the Amazing Math Race. Whew!

I’ve also designed two similar activities for students studying the concepts of ratios, angles, and slopes, and the processes of measurement, plotting points, and making tables.

• Tall Tale

How can we use angles and ratios to determine the size of an object that we can’t measure directly? On a sunny winter day when the angle of the sun is low in the sky and the shadows are long, my students grab some tape measures and head outdoors to a tall lamppost on campus. 

I ask the students, “How can we figure out the height of this lamppost even though it’s too high to measure by hand?” After a brief discussion, the students figure out for themselves how to solve this problem. 

With the help of a partner, they each measure their own height as well as the length of their shadow on the ground. By comparing these two measurements, they’re able to determine the ratio between their own heights and the length of the shadow their bodies cast. Then, by measuring the length of the shadow of the lamppost, they can use that ratio to determine its height.  

• Stairing Contest

After providing students with the angles of slope mandated for staircases by the state construction code, I send them out in small groups to measure the slopes of several staircases around campus to determine whether they comply with the code. 

By finding the vertical height of the staircase and its horizontal length (the distance traversed in climbing it), students can calculate the angle of its slope. 

When all the students have measured and recorded their data, they return to the classroom to compare their results with those of other groups. This project provides students with the opportunity to apply their previous knowledge of angles and ratios to a new situation, and to communicate with their peers to accomplish a task and discuss the outcomes. 

I hope these real-world math adventures will enable students, not only to understand mathematical concepts and processes more fully but to appreciate their practicality and to relish their pleasures. 

Miracles in the Marshes: Students Find Their Place in Science

Graham Hegeman, Upper School Science Teacher

My overall goal as a teacher is to provide all my students with the opportunity to find a place for themselves in the world of science. Even if they don’t think of science as “their thing” or plan a career in science, I hope they can still savor the experience of thinking and feeling like scientists. 

By introducing students to the scientific method of collecting and analyzing data and forming hypotheses, I seek to develop keen powers of observation, analysis, and thinking that will help them to understand and solve challenging problems in any field.

Claiming Ownership

In many science classes, students perform laboratory experiments by trudging through a step-by-step process similar to following a recipe in cooking. Instead, I provide students with a vast amount of raw data and allow them to decide for themselves how to sort it and measure it, and then generate their own questions and experiments based on their observations. 

In my ninth-grade environmental science course, for instance, I  give each small group of students 20 to 30 preserved stickleback fish along with some information about the bodies of water where the fish lived. 

The students decide as a class what characteristics they think might be relevant – from the weights of the fish to their lengths to the sizes of their tails, fins, and eyes – and then try to correlate their observations with the fishes’ habitats. They discover, for instance, that fish with big eyes feed on plankton, which is small and hard to see, while fish with smaller eyes feed on more easily spotted worms. Thus, eye size correlates with food availability in the water where they live.

Fields of Interest

Students also engage in data collection and analysis when they visit the wetlands along the Farmington River in nearby Bloomfield to perform soil analysis, species assays, and water testing and then discuss whether this environment should be protected from commercial development. This hands-on, in-person immersion in such an environment makes science more authentic and immediate for the students. And it’s also a lot of fun!  

Similarly, at the outset of my marine biology class, I ask students what aspects of the underwater world most fascinate them and then structure the course around their interests. If they’re curious, for instance, about coral bleaching, sharks, trout native to Connecticut, or the nature of life under the Arctic ice sheets, those are the topics we pursue. 

This kind of self-directed study allows students to become scientists instead of recipe followers.

Science Meets Real-World Issues

In my Advanced Placement Environmental Science class, students themselves identify and answer wider questions involving the intersection of science, economics, politics, and ethics. Their case studies have included the reasons for the Great Texas Blackout of 2021, the pollution caused by oil drilling in the Amazon rainforest, and the viability of carbon capture as a solution to climate change. 

In one case study, they explored the increasing number of algae blooms and fish kills in the estuaries of eastern North Carolina. Biologists have attributed this phenomenon to Pfiesteria, a microorganism traced to excess nitrogen waste flowing into the rivers from the many hog farms in the region. 

Students examined a vast array of opinions on the issue – from scientists, fishermen, farmers, environmentalists, politicians, and journalists. Then, in Harkness discussions, the students addressed the larger question of balancing the competing interests of all stakeholders and what societal values should shape public policy.

A Spirit of Inquiry

In each of my science classes, I want my students to feel that science is open to each of them and that it’s something they can see and do for themselves. In all their learning, I hope they become scientists – gathering data, assessing evidence, reaching conclusions – and, most of all, developing a life-long spirit of inquiry. 

Antics in the Attic: Immersing Students in the Joy of Learning

Stephanie Sperber, Upper School History Teacher

Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis” – that the American values of equality, democracy, and freedom were shaped by the continuous presence of the western frontier – might seem like a dry, academic subject. But if you had walked into my U.S. history class last February 14, you would have seen his ideas come alive as you encountered a scene from a western saloon in the 1890s.

My students, wearing cowboy hats, blue jeans, bandanas, sombreros, and checkered shirts were portraying cowboys, Mexican Americans, miners, members of Indigenous communities, sheriffs, homesteaders, and African Americans. 

As player piano music played in the background, they were assessing and debating the merits of Turner’s thesis from the point of view of diverse individuals. Did these westerners believe their experiences validated – or invalidated – Turner’s thesis about frontier egalitarianism?    

Because it was Valentine’s Day, students were asked to identify other people who shared their views about Turner’s thesis and then send valentines to them. Then the valentines were read aloud, amidst laughter, mirth, cheers, and whoops. The kids were tackling difficult material and having fun at the same time. 

Learning To Love Learning

As a history teacher, I have one goal for my students: that they take joy in learning. I want them to love learning so much that they look forward to every class, that they experience excitement, surprise, curiosity, and delight during class, and that they leave class bubbling about what just happened.

When we study an era of history, I seek to create that joy and a life-long love of learning by immersing my students in the sights, sounds, textures, and smells of that time. I want to transport them to a distant time and provide them with a 360° view of what the past was like. My goal is to create experiences that make them want to learn and to equip them with the tools to do that.   

To accomplish this, my classroom frequently comes alive in a wide variety of creative simulations. These include donning costumes, role-playing, eating food, playing board games, listening to music, building models, staging debates and trials, and even meditating. While I can’t always take students to restored historical communities like Williamsburg or Old Sturbridge Village, I can bring a little bit of that experience into the classroom almost every day.

Antics in the Attic

My classroom is located on the second floor of the First House, built exactly 100 years ago. With its sloped roof, dormer windows, and working fireplace, the room has the cozy, quirky charm of an attic, so it’s the perfect spot for creative activities. I want my students to have a space where they feel at home. The classroom walls are covered with posters, maps, bumper stickers, and artwork by students. 

Through these activities, I hope to foster deep and genuine learning experiences for my students. Here are some of the other “antics in the attic” my students have enjoyed this year:

• Crime Scene: For our class on the Boston Massacre, I greeted my U.S. history students at the door dressed as a British officer, replete with a redcoat and tricornered hat. Laid out before them was a crime scene surrounded by yellow caution tape: five plastic gingerbread men carefully positioned on the floor, representing patriots shot by British soldiers. After examining the evidence, students read first-hand accounts of the shooting from various perspectives and then wrote a letter arguing whether the British soldiers were guilty of murder or acted in self-defense.

• Gummy Government: I challenged students in my Global Cities class to portray different forms of government, such as monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy, by using Legos and Gummy Bears. Showing delightful creativity, they worked in pairs to build thrones, voting booths, and barracks and used different flavored Gummy Bears to represent different classes in society – as well as dead Gummy Bears to depict the dangers of autocracy. Afterward, they arranged their exhibits around the classroom to create a museum that the entire class then toured.

• Food for Thought: What foods did enslaved women cook for their own families? My U.S. history students literally got a taste of history when they prepared authentic soul food, including collard greens, okra soup and cornbread, and brought the delicious dishes to class to share with their fellow students. 

• Founders League: My U.S. history class has 13 students, the perfect number to recreate the Constitutional Convention of 1787 where each of the 13 states had one vote. I dressed as presiding officer George Washington as students, seated at tables draped in green cloth as at the original convention, presented their state’s concerns. Then all 13 students debated, compromised, and voted to choose the best form of government for the United States. 

Joyful Learning

While we usually think of high school history class as listening to lectures, taking notes, and memorizing dates, I’ve found that students absorb the facts, concepts, and understanding of history most effectively when they are enjoying the learning process. I provide simulations and immersive experiences so that they’ll approach class each day with anticipation, expecting something exciting is going to happen. I want to surprise them and engage them physically, mentally, and emotionally so that we can find the answers together as they learn to love learning. If I can light that fire, I’ve accomplished my goal.