Where We Are in Place and Time

    This unit focused on the Central Idea: Cross cultural exchange impacts society. The unit started off with a discussion about what makes up culture, and then students looked at different cultures from countries across the world. They looked up traditional foods, sports, holidays, religions, and other cultural aspects. Once this was done they looked up how the country is now and contrasted what they found with the traditional culture of that country. (For example, the traditional food was ______ , but the most popular restaurant in the capital now is a pizza shop.) This was their introduction to how cultures are influenced and changed by contact with other cultures.

The focus then moved on to language. Students researched common English words and looked at what language those words originally came from. They then looked at Japanese words written in katakana. Katakana shows the word wasn't originally Japanese, but many words are not obviously English or any recognizable language. (For example, the Japanese word for stapler is "ホチキス" , pronounced hochikisu. After researching the word students found out the Hotchkiss company first introduced staplers to Japan.) They next looked at Japanese words that have made it into the English language and which sorts of words have entered English the most.

Next the students focused on Manga and Anime, which are two big sources of cultural exchange from Japan to the world. They looked at the history of both, including how they started, the most popular ones historically, and their influence on other countries. 

To sum everything up, students created their own cultures / countries independently from each other. They created traditional dress, food, art, holidays, religions, and other aspects of culture. They created maps of their country, flags, and government. They made posters introducing their country. Once the posters were all up, they saw each other's countries for the first time. They went around and read everything carefully and chose an aspect of each culture that they liked the most. They then chose two of these that they would like to incorporate into the culture they had created. They made a mini poster explaining why those things had been chosen.

UOI Unit 2: How the World Works

 

How the World Works

For the second half of Term 1 the class looked at How the World Works with a specific focus on human invention and how it affects the natural world. We started by looking at the printing press, an invention that has changed all of our lives. We focused only on the positive impact of the printing press and created magazine advertisements that showcased these positive qualities. Following this we looked at the negative side of the printing press, and the class created letters from a scribe in the mid-1400s begging Gutenburg not to create the printing press. This was followed with group work where pairs of students focused on a world changing invention, its benefits, its detriments, and finally whether they thought the good outweighed the bad. They wrote this up as a report and presented it in class. (Topics chosen by the class were paint, plastic, pesticides, and thermal power plants.) 

For the final part of this unit, the class researched dams. They separated into two groups (one looking for the positive impact of dams and one looking at the negative impact of dams). Once they finished researching they then created a play that was set up as a court hearing on whether or not a dam should be built. Witnesses were called, questioned, and cross examined. The witnesses called to convince the court to build the dam were a farmer, the major of a nearby city, and a civil engineer. The witnesses called to convince the court to stop the building of the dam included a civilian who lost her home to another dam and a biologist. Finally, the jury (Abroad 7th and 8th graders) voted on whether or not the dam should be built. The jury voted to not allow the dam to be built.

    The first UOI unit for this year was themed around Who We Are. The focus for Grade 6 was on beliefs and values. At the start of the unit they looked at their own beliefs and values, and how these differed from the beliefs and values of a friend in their class. They then looked at where beliefs and values come from (society, religion, media, etc.). The class researched various religions to look at the beliefs people get from following these religions and on the similarities between major religions. They then looked at beliefs and values that come from society and nation, and how these beliefs and values change over time even within the same country. Next, the class looked at politics and how politicians focus on beliefs and values to win elections. Finally, the class ran a political campaign for the Shadow President of Abroad. This campaign was run with candidates never showing their face, name, or voice.

   

                                                 

                 

 Mathematics                                                           

We achieved a lot this year, and I am proud of all the hard work that everyone put in. 

In Unit 4 we covered; length, perimeter, area, transformation, tessellation, and symmetry in our Tiny House Project. We learned a lot about scale and only one house actually ended up being tiny.  The students really took to the design element of the project and went above and beyond what I hoped could be achieved.  The project had some challenges, but the students persevered and were able to solve them. We utilised digital technologies, such as SketchUp, to draw the exterior of our designs, and Floorplanner to create a digital version of the interiors from our drawn plans.   

We then used our project as the topic to explore data and representation, designing and implementing a survey, which was used to create a variety of graphs and tables. 

In Unit 5 we moved on to; 3D shapes, volume, capacity, mass, and position. We explored volume of composite shapes, and the students designed their own composite shapes making real world connections to the topic. 

In unit 6 we explored; chance, probability, and time. Time proved to be a bit more challenging than expected, particularly when converting between 12 and 24 hour time, but we all got there in the end.  

It has been a hectic and exciting year, and I would like to congratulate the students on their continued efforts. Well done to everyone this year, and good luck for the future.