MUST READ!- Engaging Lesson!

Just reading this article made me want to incorporate this activity into my own classroom! This makes me want to be a student again, just so that I can be in your classroom and participate i... See More

Just reading this article made me want to incorporate this activity into my own classroom! This makes me want to be a student again, just so that I can be in your classroom and participate in this type of learning activity! I believe that this article has merit, because it not only explains all of the procedure in detail, but also explains why this type of learning is necessary for students. Kathy Costello teaches eighth grade science, but I could see this lesson fitting into any middle school classroom for any content. Kathy’s thoroughness to detail made the lesson easy to understand and follow. I love how she took something that the students were interested in and turned it into a science lesson. She got the students involved and out of the classroom. She incorporated every part of the Survivor show into her lesson, having the students to compete in science challenges tied to her particular standards makes it more engaging for the students. The only problem I see is if any students have never seen Survivor, it will take them a little time to adjust to the “rules of the game”. Kathy is getting students excited about science in a unique and fun way! This is definitely something that I would love to try in my own classroom. This type of lesson is not something that you can walk in and start immediately. This will take several weeks of planning and coordinating, but I believe that it will be worth it for the students and something that they will remember forever. I really enjoyed this article! I would recommend it to all teachers, because I believe that the content can be adapted to fit all content areas and standards. The students will love this! Thank you for sharing Kathy!

Survivor Science

This article presents a creative way to engage students in authentic science investigations. I must admit – I do not watch reality TV, and I have never watched an entire Survivor episode. ... See More

This article presents a creative way to engage students in authentic science investigations. I must admit – I do not watch reality TV, and I have never watched an entire Survivor episode. I am also not sure if any of my students have watched the show. However the ideas presented in this article could be modified into challenges that students will engage in. One aspect I did not like was the “voting off the island.” I can see how the “grade” aspect could keep some students on task. Yet to more fully engage all of the students, I would consider running these challenges on a “daily winner” platform. I especially like the sample challenges provided within the article. The challenges are for all science content areas and can help inspire other teacher written challenges.