SAGE Update - November 10, 2011

Google Sketch-up (CONTINUED ANOTHER WEEK)

Many students have begun to experiment with Google Sketch-up, the CAD program that allows users to create 3-D objects online.  Experimenting with Sketch-up is this week's optional activity for SAGE  students. 

Sketch-up can be used for activities as simple as creating a 3-D box, and for complex activities such as recreating 3-D depictions of historic buildings or streets scenes.  Some high school teachers are actually having their students create a building from their community's past as they learn state and local history. Amazingly, people who create the buildings can have them added to Google Earth.

You will need to download the application onto your computer.  If your children create drawings, they can e-mail me a picture of whatever they create. 

5th Grade

This week was a time for us to demonstrate our abilities as thinkers.  Our time was dominated by the demonstration and explanation of our first absorbency experiments to one another.  Each team took their turn to do a "dry run-through" of their experiment, with the rest of the class giving them feedback in the form of "Aha's," "Questions," and "Red Flags."  Here's what each of these entailed.  

• Aha's – Something you saw or learned that you'd like to add to your own experiment (ing.)
• Questions – Something you'd like to ask the presenters about. It could be a "why" question, a "how" question, a "what would you do" question, or a "did you think about" question.
• Red Flags – This is a "caution" or "warning" you have about some aspect of the experiment. It respectfully points out an error in written procedure or in the experimenting itself.

The beauty of the feedback was this:  since our objective as a class was to see what we could take away from these experiments that would help us be better scientists, we were all learning from each other.  And, as we watched each group, we found take-aways that led us to some general rules.  For instance, Monday's class at Creekside realized that it was important to always have accurate tools for measuring - whether it was measuring the time a towel soaked, or the amount of liquid being poured onto the paper towel, or even the amount of water that wasn't absorbed by the paper towel, exactness of measurement was crucial in finding reliable results.  

Next week, we'll pool all of our knowledge and wisdom to create one experiment for the entire class to perform that we believe will help us to accurately determine the absorbency ability of each paper towel brand.

Anish and Ashley explain their absorbency experiment.

Sammy and Angela share their experiment with the Thursday class.

 


Aliya and Zoe listen to a question a student has about their experiment.





 

4th Grade

The 4th graders at Creekside worked to determine theirclass's top 30 buildings.  They made it through their top 25 so far. Here's their results.  (Grand Ridge will be working next week to do the same thing, since Friday was a holiday this week. What do you think of our list?  Are there any buildings you can think of that should be there that aren't?

Creekside 4th grade top 30 buildings (so far.)

3rd Grade

Along with the Mr. Bear activities this week, our 3rd Graders are learning the value of PERSISTENCE and CREATIVITY as they tackle a tough set of Toothpick Puzzles.  These puzzles exercise their spatial problem solving "muscles" by asking them to rearrange a set of toothpicks to certain specified designs. The persistence comes in with the "fish problem" when the students realize that the obvious strategy for rearranging them doesn't work.  Most students find this very disheartening and a huge obstacle to overcome.  (Many of them are used to things coming to them easily, and it's not a fun experience when a problem doesn't.)

Here's the fish problem.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't help your students solve it.  You'll take away the main part of the challenge that the problem represents for them.  (If you'd like to give it a try yourself, make sure he or she isn't around to peek.  They're very tempted to peek at others' solutions for this one!