Re: Plotting sunset project
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 14:07:16 -0800

I appreciate the comments on the fine points of doing the equinox
project--lots of good dos and don'ts. I do have a question for the group
though: any suggestions on how to motivate kids to actually do a
long-term at-home project like this one?
I have hesitated to even try it because I have trouble getting my
students to do any at home projects. Some of them will do anything I
assign, but most will choose to skip it if it sounds hard or time
consuming, or has to be done at a certain time of day (or night). For
example, I give constellation assignments every three weeks or so. They
get a star map, and a week to get outside and locate four or five
objects in the sky (constellations, bright stars, planets, etc). At the
end of the week I give a SIMPLE quiz. Generally more than half flunk the
quiz because they just couldn't be bothered to take 10 minutes to go
outside.

Even making the assignment worth lots of points doesn't seem to motivate
some of the kids. I get reasonable results with anything done in class,
but if it has to be done at home, it just doesn't happen. Any
suggestions on what has worked for you?

Thanks

Karen Young
Serrano High School
karen_young@snowline.k12.ca.us

Re: Plotting sunset project
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 18:59:32 -0500

That's a great question Karen. Each week I talk about what I had to go
through to do the measurement. If they know you are doing it along with
them, they might take more ownership. Keep it light and simple. When I drive
to the beach to do my observation I tell them about going and standing next
to the same piece of granite each time so that I view the Sun from the same
spot. One day I go to the beach and the DPW has moved the rock! They (my
students) loved it! I stress the idea that they should inconvenience
themselves as little as possible. "If at all possible do this from the
comfort of your living room!" Try to eliminate as many of the reasons why
they can't do it, and most will. Check the assignment on a regular basis.
"On Monday I will check your diagram, and I expect to see a minimum of 3(?)
observations. It would be great if they did it every week, but they won't.
Asking them to have 3 out of 6 answers is very reasonable. Talk about what
you saw as you did the observation. "Wasn't that a great sunset last night?
Those clouds were so neat!" If they get the idea that this is a fun thing to
do, they might become hooked.

I've been teaching since 1967, and it's the first time I've done this. I was
amazed at how much the Sun's location changes over a relatively short period
of time. By generating your own level of excitement some will be attracted.
My students range from some poor soul who did the observations every night,
to the kid I caught doing the sunset observation in the cafeteria at lunch!
You won't catch them all, but by making it simple, and showing that you are
also doing it along with them, it should be profitable.

Thanks for the question Karen.

Charlie Lindgren
Gates Intermediate School
327 First Parish Rd.
Scituate, MA 02066
781-545-8760

Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 18:55:45 -0500
Karen,

I have no idea if this will work with your group, but thought I'd share
something that worked for me. Whenever we were doing PTK one of the
components in my classroom was "the museum".

As we were completing and doing activities we discussed ways to share it
with younger students and parents who might visit our classroom. Projects
became displays--we'd brainstorm how we could find interactive ways to
display our new knowledge.

Sometimes ideas would be rolling museums. I had a cart I bought at a yard
sale and we'd put the display on it and wheel it to the office where
visitors there could enjoy it. We'd rotate projects on the cart.

In the classroom, we'd open the museum prior to PTA meetings. Kids would
show up an hour or so early. These junior curators and docents would go to
work. It was fun to see them explaining things like craters in sand and
flour or their design for the egg drop challenge or electromagnetic rays or
whatever concept they happened to work on displaying.

Data from projects done at home were also part of this so whatever they were
working on they had to think of ways to share it with others. During the
Antarctic units the kids were to design houses to prevent an ice cube from
melting as at at-home project. The melt down was actually done at school so
the kids displayed their houses along with their data on the actual melting
event.

Sometimes, we'd "open" the museum for other classes, and teachers would have
their kids parade through the room. I remember one year when a group of kids
wrote a program for the museum visitors to view before they went through the
exhibits and another time when a parent helped provide punch and finger
foods.

Anyway, it just seemed that this public component made the kids work harder
to be sure that their work was acceptable.

I always had a younger "buddy" class. Students were allowed to visit their
buddy and teach what they had learned to the younger student. We met every
week for a short time on Friday morning. Each buddy would read together and
sometimes we'd do experiements together. At the beginning of the year I
explained to the older kids how they would be a mentor and would be helping
the younger child, but I always felt my students benefited as much if not
more from the experience.

During live PTK events my students typed questions in from their younger
buddies not yet proficient at the keyboard,but who none the less were full
of questions about penguins and other things.

Good luck!
Rhonda

Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 19:48:01 -0500

Hi Karen,

One of the neat things about this type of teacher to teacher
communication is that you learn that kids are pretty much the same all
over...ha,ha.

I started the sunset charts early in the fall hoping to develop
year-long horizon calendars. I gave them a handout with specific
instructions and construction paper, telling them it will last all year
but that I'd be collecting the drawings at the end of each 9 week
quarter for grade credit. I developed a very simple rubric looking for
such things as dates, times, and number of readings. Alas, several
forgot ( despite weekly reminders ), and some pitched them after 1st
quarter thinking that they were done. However, several are now coming in
telling me that the sun has changed direction and moving back
north...hurray!

Like Charlie, I also plan to have some of the kids take horizon photos
and use an image processing program to plot the apparent movement of the
sun.

Guess I'm confident that we'll have enough good results to share so
they'll all better understand the concept.

Hope that helps....in your service,

Tim McCollum
Charleston Middle School
Charleston, IL

Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 07:00:49 -0500

Dear Karen,

When assigning projects to do at home, I always send a parent letter
home about the project, trying to get the parents involved too. I go over
the project with the students and modeling whatever the assignment is. I
present the project sp that my students think they are the teachers,
instructing their parents. For my fourth grades students, this presents
them with a wonderful opportunity to be teachers to adults. They love
this! I also work on the team approach system. Each team leader checks
weekly with their team members to see if the assignment is done, and their
team "earns" money if all members have done their homework. (My class is in
involved with a year long economic mini society where students go into
businesses, make products, conduct markets, and become young
entrepreneurs.) Of course I realize that these techniques that work great
with fourth graders won't necessarily work with high school students. I
love to watch the faces of my ten year olds as they uncover another piece
of the puzzle as they expand horizons of knowledge. Their looks of
amazement, and gosh gee whizzes are what make teaching so much fun.

And finally, my philosophy is that you can't please all the people all of
the time--translated to even if you don't involve every student, those that
do get hooked into your special assignment, their horizons will have
expanded and they will be the ones who benefit.

re: Sharing their knowledge
Like Rhonda, we try to share our knowledge with the whole school. I have
commandeered the whole wall outside our classroom, plus the cafeteria wall,
and the front tables in our school lobby. We display whatever activity we
are working on plus digitized pictures. We also have a system of friendly
helpers and a buddy system in our school with upper grades helping lower
grades. About once a month, my students act as learning ambassadors,
sharing their activity with the younger grades. Sometimes, I have them do a
mini version of the activity with the little ones. For example, after we
had do the measurement of the solar system outside, I had them do the
toilet paper solar system at home as an independent activity (parents got a
kick out of this) and then when the students went done to the lower grades
as friendly helpers, they shared their toilet paper solar system with their
little buddies.

Marilyn Wall
John Wayland Elem
Bridgewater, VA

Re: Doing Projects at home and Learning Ambassadors
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 13:15:21 -0800 (PST)
Dear Marilyn,

I agree with the importance of involving parents and letting them know
their participation and input is of importance, not only to their children
but to us as teachers. Over the years I've found that parents are much
happier when they feel their children's teacher thinks enough of them to
keep them posted on a weekly basis.

In February my class will be inviting their parents to come to school for a
Technology Night. We will not only share our Power Point, internet
homepage, and KidPix projects with our parents but our work on Live from
the Sun as well.
Several parents have also expressed an interest in "tuning in" to our
classroom via CuSeeMe!

So, by involving parents on the front end, I find that we add a valuable,
happy partner to our educational team!

Best Wishes and Happy New Year,

Lynn Hammonds
Rancho Santa Fe School

Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 13:11:34 -0800
Wow! Thanks to everyone who sent ideas. After reading your replies, I
found a general theme in most of the responses was that even if you
don't reach everybody, those who you do reach are enriched, and that
makes the project worthwhile.

By the way, I teach high school. It doesn't matter what level you teach,
the motivation problems are there (even the fact that many of my
students will not be graduating with their class is not enough to
motivate them). I just need to keep in mind that part of my job is to
give them a good experience with science that will keep them curious
about the universe they live in throughout their lives. That means
making science more than just dry textbook information. The kinds of
projects we have are 'means to that end".

Thanks for all your ideas!

Karen Young
Serrano High School
karen_young@snowline.k12.ca.us