Exoplanets, Excel and Filemaker Pro

The 6th grade Science students created a database, into which they imported information about exoplanets that they accessed from an online database. The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia The students did various sorts and multiple criteria finds in order to analyze which exoplanets were most similar to the Earth. Later on, they went to another online database Catalog of Nearby Exoplanets and downloaded a text file that they cleaned up and then imported into Filemaker. With this data, the students compared the mass of each exoplanet with the amount of wobble its star exhibited and from that, they were able to draw conclusions about the relationship between these two factors. This lesson took five class periods to complete.

Research with Online Databases and Google Docs

The 8th grade Science students accessed the EBSCO online database in order to gather information for their presentation on global warming. They also looked for information in Newsbank and SIRS. Each group created a bibliography document that they shared in Google Docs. The students also used Google Docs to take notes and collect images during their research. This lesson took four class periods to finish.

Probability and Excel

The 6th grade Math students used the randbetween function in Excel to generate different sample sizes of random numbers from one to three. They used conditional formatting to get an idea of the percentages of each number. In addition, they used the countif function to tabulate the frequency of each number and then graphed the breakdown in a pie graph. The students were able to compare the graphs and see that as their sample size increased the probability that a certain number would be chosen got closer and closer to 33.3%.

Individual Geometric Designs and Sketchup

The 6th grade Pre-Algebra students used Sketchup to create a 3D scene from a notebook draft of a 2D scene. The scene needed to have 20 different geometric figures, such as hexagons, obtuse angles, parallel lines, etc. The students had to label the different geometric figures in their 3D scene. Once they finished, the students created different scenes and exported their work as a movie. This assignment took four class periods to complete.

Short Story Review and Dreamweaver

The 8th grade Language Arts students used Fireworks and Dreamweaver to create a website that reviewed five different short stories that they read during the year. Each page had a short summary of the story and a rating. Many students used Google Docs to compose the content of the site for homework, while they worked on the site design during the day at school. This lesson took five class periods to complete.

The Ancient Greeks, GarageBand and iMovie

Some of the 6th grade Social Studies students made a movie of a TV panel show about famous Greek leaders that they acted out and filmed in their classroom. The teacher used two cameras to film the presentation, so the students had to compare the footage from "Camera 1" and "Camera 2" in the Clip Browser and then select the best clip for the situation. Later the students added text and voice overs to clarify any points that weren't clear from the audio. Finally, they imported mp3's of the intros and outros that they composed in Garage Band. The project took five days to complete.

Human Body Systems and Dreamweaver

The 7th grade Science students used Fireworks and Dreamweaver to create a web site that focused on one of the human body systems. They created buttons and a title bar with Fireworks and later imported these into Dreamweaver. Once their website was laid out and linked together, the students used their research notes to finish the content requirements of the project. This lesson took six class periods to complete.

Reverse Poems and Premiere

Some of the 7th grade Language Arts students used Soundbooth and Premiere Pro to create a short video clip that was modeled after the Lost Generation video. Students recorded the forward and backward versions of their poem in Soundbooth and later imported these recordings into Premiere Pro. This lesson took three class periods to complete.

Exploring Segment Relationships in Circles with Geometer's Sketchpad

The 8th grade Geometry students explored the relationships generated when secants, chords and tangents of circles intersect. This lesson took one and a half classes to finish.

Exploring Angle Relationships in Circles with Geometer's Sketchpad

The 8th grade Geometry students used Geometer's Sketchpad to create figures that they could move, and from the movement of different points and lines, the students gathered data that helped them make conjectures about the relationships between the angles and the circles. This lesson took one and a half class periods to complete.

Geometric Shapes and Sketchup

The 6th grade Math students used Google Sketchup to create geometric shapes that they are studying in class, like prisms and pyramids. Students had to use a variety of tools and keyboard shortcuts to navigate in the three dimensional space in order to place their models properly.

Watersheds, Excel, Google Sketchup and Google Earth

First, the 6th grade Science students did research about the value of watersheds, and the tests that can be done to determine the purity of their water. Then the students did various tests on the water that comes from a spring which is found on school property in back of the parking lot. They recorded these results in an Excel document.



Later they created trees in Sketchup, and placed these trees in back of the tennis courts in Google Earth, projecting what the land might look like, if the spring water were used to water the trees. The unit took five class periods to complete.

Surface Area, Volume and Google Sketchup

The 7th grade Math students created cones, cylinders, prisms and pyramids, which they combined in a variety of ways. Later, the students used Sketchup to calculate both the surface area and volume of the different shapes. This lesson took two classes to complete.

Persuasive Writing and Garage Band

Some of the 6th grade Language Arts students used Garage Band to record themselves, while reading a persuasive essay. These recordings were exported as mp3s and then placed in their public folders, where classmates could access them, and record feedback as to whether the essay was persuasive or not. This lesson took two class periods to complete.

Community Service Web Page and Dreamweaver

A group of middle school students is using Photoshop, Word, iMovie and Dreamweaver to record and publish the progress made by different house groups with their community service projects. This project will take six class periods to complete.

Mitosis and Powerpoint

The 7th grade Science students used Powerpoint and their class notes to create a model of the process of mitosis. Several drawing tools were used to create the model. The lesson took three class periods to complete.

Current, Resistance, Word and Excel

The 8th grade Science students used Excel to record their observations in a lab that investigated current and resistance. Later, the students used Word to write up their formal lab report. This lesson took two periods to complete and made use of the mobile lab.