Sep 5 2014

TED Talk: Hey Science Teachers Make It Fun!

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Aug 6 2018

Group 4 Project: Zombie Apocalypse Escape Room

The purpose of the Group 4 project in the International Baccalaureate Program is for students to be able to experience interdisciplinary collaboration. This year our team of educators decided to help our students design 6 escape rooms with the overarching theme being Zombie Apocalypse. Each room had three main puzzles to solve (Chemistry, Biology, Physics, ESS, or Sports Science). We placed our students into Blocks (Block A or Block B), Teams  (1-9) and then Groups (each consisting of 4-5 students). The purpose of the divisions was to create a sense of competition-to see which Block/Team and then group could escape the three rooms with

the best overall time. The overall feedback from students is that they absolutely loved the day! After the day was completed we had we reflected and realised that there were a few areas in which we could improve, such as possible reducing the number of escape rooms and providing more time for planning and preparation. Overall, the day was a hit!

Jun 21 2016

IGCSE: Active Listening

IGCSE students are learning about conservation and how bees are a vital part of a healthy ecosystem. As such, our department decided to show the film entitled: Vanishing Bees a documentary investigating the economical impact of the world wide loss of bees. Below students are practicing  their active listening skills by implementing graphic recording. See some images below.

 

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Jun 21 2016

Building a Mesocosm

IB1 students were asked to construct a mesocosm, which is a closed ecosystem that allows for variables to be controlled. Ours students used five bottles, 1 aquatic plant, some distilled water, coal, soil, cat poop (this was left in one of our student’s sunflower pot, which happened to be their individual investigation, so we decided to make use of it in our mesocosm), 3 earth worms, cress seeds, and rocks and some compost. The mesocosm is thriving near a window in our room and has been growing for several months now. We look forward to examining it next academic year.

Below are some photos. Enjoy.

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Jun 21 2016

Augmented Reality in the Garden

IB1 students were each given a learning objective covering Topic 9.3 that they had to learn and teach to their peers. They were instructed to do two things:

  1. Create a video teaching their learning objective
  2. Create an Aura using the Aurasma app

Feedback from students was excellent! They absolutely loved being in the garden and using their iPads to learn about plants. This is a great way to get kids up out of their seat. Using augmented reality also increases overall engagement and makes learning a bit more exciting than the traditional teacher centered approach.

 

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Sep 8 2015

Edible Kreb’s Cycle Models

In order to increase understanding and comprehension, Year 13 IB Biology (HL) students were asked to create edible Kreb’s Cycle models, which were absolutely fantastic and of course delicious! I’m so impressed with their projects!                        Kreb's Cycle Edible Cake Kreb's Cycle Edible Model-Brownies Kreb's Cycle Edible Model-Brownies 2 Kreb's Cycle Models Kreb's Cycle-edible models-cup cakes Edible Kreb's Cycle Model-Donuts Kreb's Cycle Model-Cupcake 2

Jun 18 2015

CGB Year 12 Memories of 2014-2015

This was the first time that I have had the opportunity to teach an all girl group, and I have to say that I absolutely adore these group of girls! We had such a wonderful time in Biology HL this year as we made models, creating biology music videos, design digestion t-shirts, created iBook stories about biotechnology, and incorporated augmented reality project when learning about defense against diseases. Overall, it has been an amazing year with these group of girls and this video highlights and celebrates their success.