Project+Sketch

= Project Sketch =

Description:
For our eighth grade students we will be designing a project focused on the Iditarod race. This will be an interdisciplinary unit composed of several lessons centering on the theme of survival and adaptation. As a summative assessment, students will be expected to complete projects in each of their core classes (English, Language, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies) that incorporate the idea of adaptation to one's environment. As a means to bring all of these projects together, the students will be expected to put the Iditarod projects onto a wikispace for the community to see. Web 2.0 technologies will be central to these projects. Students will be assessed by their ability to study their environment and to adapt to various conditions and circumstances that the Iditarod presents.

For Social Studies students will be creating "Survival Handbooks." Due to the fact that the essential question is about adaptation, students will be using social bookmarking to research survival in Alaska. Students will have to understand Alaska's climate and how those involved in the race survive on a day to day basis. Participation in this race requires a great deal of planning and organization. Essentially, students will use Social Studies as a means to create a guide to the race. It will be mainly focused on how humans must learn to adapt to their changing environment and how geography impacts our lives.

In the English classroom students will read the novel __Dogsong__ by Gary Paulsen. The main focus will be perspective. We will use the EQ: How can literature help me better understand those who differ from myself. In order to understand how a musher is affected by his environment and what he must do to adapt students will journal in the voice of a musher. They will be responsible for posting their journal responses on a class blog created by the teacher. Students will participate in other classroom activities such as creating a musher's iPod list and a musher's facebook page. The teacher will use smart-notebook technology to create a game to serve as the summative assessment for the unit. Students will also have the option to research an actual racer and create a play list or sound compilation that accurately reflects that racers character, which again, places the student in a position to understand and explore the concept of perspective.

In the Mathematics classroom students will use ratios and proportions to measure the distances the mushers travel over a particular period of time. Students will use the Iditarod website to view the terrain of the course as well as the mushers' progress in "real time." Ultimately, the students are going to be displaying data by use of Microsoft Excel. The educators will create a screen cast tutorial where they can lay out the step-by-step process for data input into Excel. The purpose of using Excel is for students to generate graphical evidence of their mathematical findings. Students will be analyzing data and graphs to determine which mushers are better adapting to their surroundings. Students will be able to explain through mathematics why certain mushers are faring better than others. When a graph plateaus, the student will understand that a musher has stopped at that particular point in the race. Again using Excel, students can mathematically determine what temperatures are most suitable for travel. Should a musher be going slower on a very cold day, our data and graphical evidence will reflect that. The students will need to be able to explain the significance of the data they have in front of them.

In the Science classroom students will use the NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) Website to learn how to track the weather in Alaska. They will make predictions as to how changes in the weather may affect the outcome of the race. We will consult with an expert meteorologist to help the project run smoothly. Students will learn how to create contour maps using appropriate computer software. The focus will be on elevation and students will attempt to uncover how different geographic elements affect the way an musher must prepare for a race. Their final product will be a presentation on one piece of the Iditarod trail.

In the Spanish classroom students will complete a series of lessons to explore a common theme. They will focus on the idea of location and how it affects people. Discussions will center on how locations have affected different groups of people in the past specifically their habits, clothing, food, and recreation. To do this, students will examine people who live in different climates. We will explore how their cultures are affected by their surroundings. After learning the rudimentary vocabulary surrounding climate, we will talk about people who live in warm climates as opposed to those who live in colder climates. Students will note that people adapt to their surroundings, and that their cultures are also affected by them.