Fifth Grade Students’ Distance Learning Project
November 23, 2009
Mr. Mahnken’s fifth grade students recently participated in a distance learning project. Greenbush instructor, Lisa Blair, lead the students in two projects, the first creating their own terrarium while the second project consisted of planting cauliflower seeds in 3 cups, each cup containing a different combination of soil and hydro gel. The students will observe the plants over the next few weeks and come up with a hypothesis of what soil/hydro gel combination produces the best plant growth results.
Blair was able to communicate with the students via a web camera placed in the classroom. That provided the students the ability to see and hear Blair who was presenting from Greenbush and Blair was able to see and hear the students in their classroom. The use of a document camera allowed Blair to demonstrate the steps the students needed to take to create the terrarium and steps for planting the seeds in the various cups of soil. Blair was able to answer several questions the students had throughout the project.
This is an activity the students would normally have done if they were to travel to the Greenbush facility. By utilizing available technologies, the students were still able to take part in the activity without leaving their classroom.
This is the second distant learning project in which Mr. Mahnken’s class has participated. They performed a DNA extraction in their first session. Additional projects are planned in the near future with several other classrooms as well as Mahnken’s. Blair will also hold a follow up session with the class to see what results they find by observing their plants in the coming weeks.
Thumbs up to Mr. Mahnken and Mrs. Blair for making this possible for Northeast students.
