We've been busy this week beginning our final unit inquiry on Electricity. Before we can inquire about anything, we needed to figure out what makes a GOOD inquiry question. Students read different sections of an article in partners, and narrowed down the main points from those sections. Then, we mixed partnerships into larger groups to share what each partnership learned from the smaller section that they read. Below, you can see a few of the ideas students jotted down on the whiteboards. Important qualities of an inquiry question include:
Below, I began my own model inquiry, on the 1971 construction of the hydroelectric dam on the James Bay in Quebec. This was a huge project for the government of Quebec, set to allow them to harness the power of the water to create electricity, but also had a disastrous impact on the environment and the Cree who lived in the region. My question is: What could the government do differently if they were to construct this dam today? We learned how my question needs a lot of background in order for me to answer it. I need to know the basic facts of the project (think: who, what, where, when, why), I need to know the original impact, the perspectives of different groups, and more. Only then might I be able to look into current day policies and technologies surrounding the construction of a project like this to be able to suggest what the government could have done better. Students helped (on the sticky notes below) write these smaller questions that could be asked to support my larger inquiry, as practice. Now, students have created their own inquiry questions on the theme of electricity, energy conservation, and the environment.
I invite you to check out your child's inquiry question by clicking HERE and chatting with them about it. The questions are really neat, and cover a wide range of topics! Below you can see two groups beginning the preliminary stages of creating their larger question with mini-questions to go with it. On THIS post you learned about the first four Science centres... here are the next four. What can you do with these at home? Talk about them! Here are some prompts for when you're discussing with your child:
CENTRE 5: Students play Save the World online and then play Energy Dominoes together in class. Save the World challenges students to learn about different and alternative power sources and how we generate electricity for our daily activities. Energy Dominoes gives students a chance to review sources, forms, and examples of energy. CENTRE 6: Students get to explore a whole bunch of different toys - bouncy balls, Slinkys, pull-back cars, etc. Students discover what types of energy are used to make each move. What type of energy is lost in the system?
CENTRE 7: Students create a marble run and discover transformations of energy. CENTRE 8: Students explore the school with a wattmetre. They choose different appliances (fridges, water fountains, techtubs) and plug them into the wattmetre to discover how much power they are using in standby and active modes. The group below is checking out how much power the Chromebook is taking when it's not being used, as well as when they are watching a YouTube video, listening to music, or typing a document. They will share this information with other kids in the school to inform them on ways to conserve energy at KHPS! |
Mme SamuelWondering what's to come in Science and Social Studies? Check out our timeline here for the rest of the year. Archives
March 2020
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