Lake Titicaca Floating Island Challenge
This week's STEM-infused challenge was based on one of our social studies standards about identifying major physical features of South America. Lake Titicaca, located between Peru and Bolivia, was one of the features listed. I had never even heard of this lake, but after doing a little reading I became mesmerized with the unique culture of the people who live there. The Uros are group of people who have lived on man-made floating islands made of totora reeds for thousands of years. This week during enrichment time, we studied their culture and the impact that tourism has made on their islands in the past few decades.
We began by reading an article from a website called Amusing Planet to build background information about the Uros and their floating islands. To read it, click here.
Next, we learned more using a new EdTech tool called EduCanon. On this website, I was able to paste the URL of a YouTube video and then pause the video and insert questions. The students then logged in and watched the video. The video would automatically pause at the points that I designated, and students would have to answer the question before the video would continue to play. The students did this in groups so that they could discuss the questions together.
We began by reading an article from a website called Amusing Planet to build background information about the Uros and their floating islands. To read it, click here.
Next, we learned more using a new EdTech tool called EduCanon. On this website, I was able to paste the URL of a YouTube video and then pause the video and insert questions. The students then logged in and watched the video. The video would automatically pause at the points that I designated, and students would have to answer the question before the video would continue to play. The students did this in groups so that they could discuss the questions together.
In the video, a Uro man named Yony explained that in order to maintain the floating islands, he and his friends must daily cut totora reed to add to the island to replace the reeds that disintegrate in the water over time. He demonstrated this difficult job, showing how often his legs are cut by the coarse reeds.
The students were then challenged to design a "grabber" to help Yony and his friends pick up the reeds they cut and load them into the boat. To do this, the students had to follow step-by-step directions from a website in order to learn the basic design. Here is a link to the instructions we used: Grabber Instructions.
The students were then challenged to design a "grabber" to help Yony and his friends pick up the reeds they cut and load them into the boat. To do this, the students had to follow step-by-step directions from a website in order to learn the basic design. Here is a link to the instructions we used: Grabber Instructions.
They then had to design their own end for it in order to use it to pick up "reeds."
We also worked in some extra reading practice by reading another article on the floating islands from another source. In the video we read, our friend Yony explained how tourism benefited his family. However, the last article we read had a somewhat cynical tone regarding tourism on Lake Titicaca. Using the SeeSaw discussion approach that I wrote about in earlier in the week, we discussed the difference in their points of view, advantages and disadvantages of tourism, etc.
As usual, I was very impressed with their brilliant design ideas as well as their ability to discuss complex and controversial issues.
As usual, I was very impressed with their brilliant design ideas as well as their ability to discuss complex and controversial issues.
Salute!
We also played an AWESOME card game in math today to practice missing factors/ fact families/ division facts. This game is called Salute, and I found in on Pinterest. Basically, two students place cards on their forehead without looking at their card. A third child tells them the product of their two cards (multiplies them together.) Then the students race to guess what number is on their own head by looking at the other student's number. This would be a GREAT game to practice multiplication and division facts at home as well!
October AR Reward
All of our kiddos met their October goal for AR! Therefore, they all got to participate in this month's reward, a silly string fight! So much fun!