Weather Unit:
During our weather unit, students are learning how to understand weather; how to predict the weather; and how weather affects our lives:
Statement of Inquiry:
Weather, a complex interaction between many systems, is important to our lives and affects the citizens of the planet in many ways.
Inquiry Questions:
- What are the systems that interact to produce weather?
- What causes different kinds of weather?
- How do patterns in local weather create climate?
- How does weather differ from climate?
- How do unequal heating and the Earth’s rotation affect wind pattern?
- Why is weather forecasting important locally and globally?
- How reliable are weather forecasts?
- Why is understanding how weather forms important to our lives?
Global Citizens:
In the beginning of our lessons of inquiry, Hurricane Harvey devastated parts of Texas. It gave us an immediate opportunity to understand how weather affects the citizens of the planet and to take the opportunity to brainstorm ideas on how to help communities when they are greatly affected by extreme weather.
We learned that Port Aransas, Texas was completely devastated after Hurricane Harvey tore its way through the Gulf of Mexico and the Texan coastline. Our team immediately wanted to help, so we began to research and we ultimately found Brundrett Middle School. The school has plans to rebuild, but they need a lot of help. We then began to reach out to our KAS Community for support.
Maggie and Amos quickly created this iMovie to notify people about our project: Fundraising for Hurricane Harvey Victims. All of the sixth graders gave speeches to KAS classes, grades 1 – 12. I was very impressed with their willingness to cooperate and participate in such a bold way to inform our community. With Amos and Maggie’s video, speaking in front of a whole class was much more manageable. Thanks, Maggie and Amos!
Donation Jars
Our first efforts to collect funds was to gather donation jars and put them in where grades 1 – 12 could participate. After the sixth-graders gave speeches to the classes, they left donation jars so that those students could help. (We thought that pre-Kinder and Kinder students might be a bit young for this request, so we focused on grades 1 – 12).
Here is a video which reminds students that they can donate and help our cause:
Bake Sale
After many meetings of brainstorming ideas and proposing ideas to the administration, we decided to organize one big bake sale on October 13 to try and raise funds.
Darrin helped by creating a flyer in his free time:
Also, Chloe and Arielle made this lovely video to advertise our October 13 Bake Sale:
On October 13, the BAKE SALE WAS A SUCCESS!!!! All of the students and parents bonded together. Parents donated lots of food and beverage items and the students cooperated as they organized the tables. Then the sixth graders did such a fabulous job running the bake sale. I was really amazed by their teamwork and independence. I think I will stop teaching, open a restaurant and hire my students! They did such a great job at this bake sale; I think we could make a really great restaurant!! Only joking – I just wanted to express how enjoyable it was working with the sixth-graders. They are so efficient and enthusiastic!
Here is the video showing how we prepared for the bake sale. We collected all of the MS and HS donation jars so that we could organize cash boxes for our incredible bake sale. Wow! We were so organized!
Results
Soon, I will know all of the results from our fundraising efforts for Brundrett Middle School. I do know that at the moment, we raised well over 30,000 NT!!!
Go Grade 6 Dragons!