We've fallen behind a bit with the blog, and it's in part because we've had an extremely busy January! I'll be writing a few catch-up posts over the next few days, and then we'll return to our usual schedule of posting at least once a week. We're also going to be turning some of the posting duties over to the class in the weeks ahead, with each student taking turns to recap our activities for each week.
Global Citizenship
Our first weeks of 2013 have been packed with activity, much of which has been related to our Global Citizenship theme. This month, we've talked a lot about the unintended consequences that human activity have had on the natural world. We kicked off this conversation early in the month with an activity.
Students were presented with the following objects:
- aluminum can
- cotton rag
- wool sock
- styrofoam block
- plastic bottle
- glass bottle
- apple core
- leather boot
- paper bag
They were then asked what they had in common. As you might imagine, there were many clever and ridiculous answers, but the one we finally hit on was that these are all things that are likely to be thrown into the garbage at some point.
We then split into small groups. Different materials decompose at different rates, and each group was asked to list the items in order from the quickest to decompose to the longest. We then compared our lists on the board:
After each group gave their rationale for their list, I gave everyone the correct order and asked them to come up with their best guesses for how long it would take for each item to decompose. The answers were eye-opening:
- apple: 3-4 weeks
- paper bag: 1 month
- cotton rag: 5 months
- wool sock: 1 year
- leather boot: 40-50 years for the leather, 50-80 for the rubber sole
- tin can: 80 years
- aluminum can: 200 years
- plastic bottle: 1 million years (?)
- Styrofoam block: unknown
- glass bottle: unknown
Some of this was surprising. For example, Styrofoam seems so fragile and brittle that one might think that it would "break down" quickly. This lead to a discussion on the difference between "biodegradation" and simply breaking something into smaller and smaller pieces. A hunk of Styrofoam may get broken down into smaller and smaller bits, but they are still tiny pieces of Styrofoam. The same is true of plastic.
Another observation that was made was that items that were the least processed by humans were the things that broke down the fastest. Apples, paper, cotton, wool, and leather will break down much more quickly than processed tin and aluminum.
This activity primed them for a conversation about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which we talked about a few days later. If you're unfamiliar with the Garbage Patch, take a look at this short video. It's only two minutes long, but it's pretty powerful. It will stick with you.
We also watched a slightly longer video (it's about seven minutes long) of a talk given by Capt. Charles Moore, who first visited the garbage patch and who has worked to publicize its existence.
These videos, along with some readings, have generated many subsequent conversations on a variety of topics. For example, learning about the nature of the garbage patch has introduced the concept of global ocean and atmospheric currents. Understanding how the patch came into existence means learning about these currents, and specifically gyres, which is a term they had previously been unfamiliar with. (There are actually five large garbage patches across the globe, created by five large gyres. The Pacific Garbage Patch is simply the one that has recieved the most media attention.) Each of these concepts introduces potential lines of inquiry for individual research and project work, which we will be developing over the course the school year.
Literature Circles
We've also introduced Literature Circles this month. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we join with Karl's class to work in small groups. Each group is reading a different novel. Karl has introduced the topic on his class blog here: http://sikkenga.blogspot.com/2013/01/literature-circles.html |
| Danny, Jonathan, Jianmarco, and Alexandra reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie |
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| Saul, Lily, Kaeli, and Noah reading Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang |
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| Melissa, Matthew, Cory, and Taylor reading Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer |
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| Denali, Isobel Aristea, and Margaret reading Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell |
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| Evan, Henry, and Trent reading My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier |
Karl has also posted some of the questions that the groups have come up with regarding their books. Read his post here.
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