Saugus Iron Works PBU

The learning was fast-paced as we entered the second day of filming by the George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF). The GLEF crew spent the day at the Ferryway school capturing two major Project-Based Learning initiatives; Biome Breakthrough in grade four and Saugus Iron Works (SIW) Great Adventure in grade 5. Our first stop was Mr. Richmond's computer lab where fourth graders were putting the finishing touches on their biome Powerpoint presentations. Moving on to Mrs. Shelton's class, students were challenged by an introductory lesson that had them making observations about the rainforest and temperate-deciduous forest biomes. Mr. Teixeira modeled the use of a Student Response System (SRS) in which students could each use a remote to register their responses to questions. Mrs. Shelton could show bar graphs depicting the classes results to encourage discussion. Across the hall in Mrs. Urban's room, Mr. Teixeira again helped model the use of the SRS, but this time the task was much more difficult. Students were shown pictures of unknown animals and asked to predict which biome they thought that it lived in by carefully considering the physical characteristics of the lost vertebrate. The entire class successfully returned the poison dart frog to the rainforest.


By mid-morning the crew transitioned to the fifth grade to capture the breadth of teaching and learning throughout the SIW unit. The pace quickened as the team visited Mr. Fitzpatrick's tech shop to learn how students went from paper-based waterwheel designs to prototype construction. Mr. Fitzpatrick demonstrated how to accurately find the center of a circle by using math skills enabling students to properly center a dowel through their waterwheels.



At 11:30 students in Mrs. Briatico's and Mrs. Girard's assembled in the auditorium to watch the waterwheel competition. Beginning in January, with guidance from Tufts Engineering intern, Andy Chang, students working in teams learned about the engineering design process by building their own waterwheels from Styrofoam, PVC pipe, paper cups, and glue. The purpose of today's competition was to test prototype designs followed by a debrief session in which students discussed what changes they would make as they redesign their waterwheels. Redesign is an important step in the design process. Each waterwheel was inserted onto the testing apparatus built by Mr. Fitzpatrick, the water was turned on and cups began to fill causing the wheels to spin. Excitement and the noise levels increased as the string attached to the weight platform tightened. The moment of truth was at hand as only the most efficient waterwheels could lift the weight of bricks and tiles. The day's most efficient waterwheel lifted an astounding 5.5 kilograms (over 12 lbs)!
Next up, the GLEF crew went to the fifth grade classrooms to record a lesson on rocks and minerals where students used concept mapping software (Inspiration) on the wireless HP laptops to create rock and mineral profile page. Each student was asked to create a page for a class book on rocks and minerals.
Mrs. Tomadakis, the 5-8 computer teacher led a rocks and mineral lesson using the online SIW Project-Based Unit (PBU), Inspiration, and the HP laptops. Students worked in teams to develop concept maps to identify and classify rocks and minerals found on various websites embedded in the unit. Students taught one another how to use Inspiration features such as hyperlinking and symbol formatting. The GLEF crew then recorded a new lesson on photojournalism taught by Mr. Simpson. Teams of students received a digital camera and an assignment to capture photos representing one of six categories, such as simple machines and colonial life while on the Saugus Iron Works field trip. After returning from the SIW students downloaded their pictures to a laptop and then had to decide which three photos best represented their assigned category. The photos were saved and uploaded to a classroom SIW wiki for review. The final part of the assignment is to write a descriptive caption for each of their photos.
In a separate room, the GLEF crew wanted to document a teacher professional development session on using a Student Response System. Mr. Teixeira led the meeting in which fifth grade teachers were given remotes and a brief introduction on the teaching and learning potential of real-time formative assessment.

As the day ended, the GLEF crew transformed Mrs. Briatico's classroom into a studio in order to conduct on camera interviews. GLEF's senior series producer, Ken Ellis, conducted interviews with Mrs. Briatico, Principal DeVito, Mr. Teixeira, Dr. Fiducia, Mr. Simpson, and ISTE's Director of Professional Development Services, Bob Choquette, who had observed the day's events. The common themes that emerged were the importance of team work and collaboration amongst educators who offer a diverse set of skills, the need to create 21st century learning environments for our students, and further support for providing high quality training focused on effective technology integration.

We would like to thank the Ferryway School community for helping make the GLEF site visit a success. If you would like to share your thoughts why not leave a comment on this post.

Labels: biomes, GLEF, SIW, waterwheel competition