A month ago a student came to the library here at Portageview Public School, looking for information about a specific rock as she was gathering research for an inquiry in grade four on Rocks and Minerals.
Together we composed a tweet and sent an email to Science North/ Dynamic Earth in Sudbury.
A quick reply was received. The response from Science North led me to wonder if they would be interested in connecting with the students at Portage View to discuss and answer additional questions about rocks and minerals. Through email, they explained that they didn’t yet have an e-workshop for rocks and minerals but that they did have one for Gears and Pulleys. A phone call was set up between the two grade four teachers at our school and Melanie Smith a scientist from Science North to discuss this opportunity.
Through this communication, we learned that the Gears and Pulleys workshop not only was available but was also free at this time as it was being subsidized. We were very excited to hear about this program and set in motion the steps necessary to take part in this program. A date was arranged, materials were sent and arrived from Science North and a check to ensure that the online conferencing we would use for our meeting (Zoom) would work. We were now ready to go!
In April, the grade four students arrived in the library with their ipads ready to take part in this online workshop. Scientist Melanie from Science North facilitated the program from her office in Sudbury.
The grade four students used ipads throughout the workshop to document their learning and then used Book Creator to create a finished product to share their learning. We have been asked to share some of these with Science North.
Below is a video of one of the recounts created by a group of students:
This experience was an excellent opportunity for the students at Portage View to participate in hands-on learning, connect with a real scientist and ask questions to an expert in the field!
submitted by Jacquie Raycraft, Teacher Librarian
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