| Description | This is a fourth and fifth grade gifted classroom in a pull-out program. They come to VOYAGE on Wednesday and spend the day. There are six fifth graders and nine fourth graders. Our school is located in Stone Mountain, GA, and is comprised of about 85% black students; the rest are white and variou nationalities. In my class there is one oriental, one from India, five black students, and seven white students. There are eight girls and nine boys. I would like for them to become acquainted with the power of an electron microscope and the details they will be able to see. They are also totally fascinated with using the computers for everything, especially research. The students have been learning to identify and classify insects. They have created an imaginary insect for which they had to figure our the classification based on the different body parts they incorporated. We have sewed our own insect nets and have made one trip down to the meadow behind the school to collect specimens. When we returned to the room, we used mini-field guides to try and identify ithe insects. Phase Two of the unit includes a simulation on any imaginary island. We will be creating an insect zoo to coordinate with a remodeled zoo the second and third grade class will create with life-sized animals. I have already mentioned Bugscope to some of our elementary staff as well as the middle school science teacher. Several will probably stop by our classroom to observe. |
