This year I'm involved in a project recording on Tuesdays the shadow of the sun cast by a tetherball pole ( gnomon) at 11AM. This data is collected with many schools and has sprung my 1st graders into a great many investigations. Many i've reported here and many I've yet to blog. The project originated at Mesa School. It's pretty cool and has hooked me into believing that if I start a year with one similar project for each day of the week, it will through time have wide ranging affects on my students. So for next year I'm trying to think about it.
Some of my past posts on this can be found here:
One of the things we did was create around the tetherball pole a "grid" with the pole at the focus of a large circle. Then the directions were found ( north south east west) These became the x and y axis of this huge grid. So that when the students recorded the marks of the shadow it went onto a grid made in proportion to the tetherball pole. It was constructed with students learning how to make straight lines, how to find the parallel and perpendicular lines using angles, triangles, long story, very simple. Very good because we then used it to fully understand coordinates. My class play lots of games calling out and finding their position. You might hear west 4 north 3, and look u to see a student standing on this place. Or x5, y7 and see the same.These are first graders running an entire grid set up to illustrate coordinate system. Inside on paper later they have it. Positive and negative understood as well. All from this grid observatory.
Here are two videos my husband made from his work at Mesa Union about the grid as it was built by children at his school and evolved into use all year. I think mostly they are just celebrating this project with this video but it is fun to see. I need to create some video pieces myself. I'm just working on how to narrate them, learning the program....again any school may join this project and it's a great thing to try. It's been fantastically good for the kids.
You can see the newest video here as I can't get it to upload.
http://cyber3.iescentral.com/sites/mesausd/images/public_media_library/5.wmvThat's frustrating!
And the next here...
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