Tina and I collaborated on our Genius Hour Project. We decided to implement a project that deals with recycling. In order for the project to be successful we needed our students' families to collect and send into school recyclable trash. I had many families participate in this activity.
We began the project by having the students watching different videos and discussing the information in the videos with the students. After those discussions the students looked at pictures of landfills, pictures of trash in the oceans and pictures of animals impacted by trash. The students described the details in the pictures and shared them with each other. Then the students looked at pictures of objects created from recyclable materials. They discussed what they might want to make with those materials. Finally the students created their own object using recyclable materials. The students decided on their object and created it with the help of me or my assistant. Some students were more independent in their creativity and implementation of their idea while other students needed more guidance and help from us.
My students enjoyed this project. They made necklaces, robots, cars, a dinosaur, a flower vase, a bracelet and earrings. I was impressed with their enthusiasm and creativity while they worked on their object. My students were also engaged in the activity and a few of them spent more than thirty minutes working on their object. It was interesting to observe how their interest in the activity increased their focus and engagement. This project could be made into a longer project. My students and I had a great time creating different objects with recyclable trash.
Hi Alana,
ReplyDeleteI reviewed the materials you and Tina created for your Genius Hour recycling project and I really liked the STEAM approach to the project where you crowd sourced the recycled materials from your school community and then gave students the opportunity to design and build new creations from the donated materials. I am glad that you and your assistant were available to provide support to the students but you allowed each student to determine what level of support they needed. I loved the variety of student creations especially Jacob's fire truck and Alice's earrings. I agree with you that this project could be a longer one and would like to suggest you considering adding in a "how to" writing component where students use the writing process along with the engineering and design process to make a "how to" book or video for creating their project, drawing pictures of the materials they chose as well as step by step pictures and dictation of how they made their up cycled objects. Great job! Sincerely, Dawn
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