Module G Integration

I found a website in the Integration Corner of the Course Port website, that would be a great site for an interdisciplinary approach for a middle school grade level.  It’s located at http://www.exploratorium.edu/explore/.   The website is based on a museum in San Fransisco, the Exploratorium- for “science, art, and human perception.”  I think it would be an awesome field trip idea for an educational facility in California to explore this website and then at the conclusion, go visit the museum.  Even if you aren’t in California, the website is a great find with its many interactive resources for learning and development.  For example, it has a “Geometry Playground,” where kids can really learn a lot about geometry and have a lot of fun at the same time in the virtual world.  Another area of the site is Bob Miller’s  “Light Walk” where students can learn how to make a pin hole camera and learn about shadows and shapes made of light.  There’s a “Science of Music” link that will allow kids to learn about music, as well as create their own.  Similarly, there is also a “Science of Cooking” where students can learn about food chemistry.  The website is a fun way to explore many different subjects at the same time.

Module F Integration

I found a website, located at http://www97.intel.com/en/ProjectDesign that has a wide array of project ideas for multiple grade levels and subjects.  This site takes in to account the different grade curricula and displays many ideas to help educators teach students how to apply their knowledge to the real world.  You can search through the projects by grade level or by subject, and see how each project idea applies to each learning technique or curriculum study.  It also shows links to other websites that demonstrate teaching concepts to teachers about getting kids to use their higher order thinking skills, and why it is necessary to help students learn how to learn in and of itself. 

The tabs on the top of the website show four different approaches to navigating the site- Project Design,  Thinking Skills, the Unit Plan Index, and Instructional Strategies.  Each of these areas help instructors teach better.  In the Project Design you can find the different assignment recommendations to help kids apply their knowledge, as well as guidelines on how to prepare a project itself for a large number of students to get the most benefit. In the Thinking Skills section you can see which projects help promote which skills that kids should be learning.  The Unit Plan index helps instructors make specific projects for different subjects, and finally the Instructional Strategies offers further resources for teachers to help organize classrooms and activities.  I believe that this site is a great find for teachers that want to help their students learn how to think for themselves.