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Math and Science . . . two topics either loved or feared, seen as essential or useless. How many times have a heard a student say, "I'm never going to use this! Why do I have to learn it? This doesn't have anything to do with my life." I disagree.There are so many instances in life where we use math and science and yet students continue the well-worn complaints. I believe they have yet to make a connection between these topics and their everyday lives. This is my desire as a teacher--to help my students make a connection between math and science and the real world. My hope is that I can help them see that they are already using these subjects in their lives and that they are happening all around them every day. If I'm successful in my pursuit, I can confirm this notion with my students who already possess positive, preconceived ideas about math and science. Yet, more importantly, if I am successful in my endeavors, I can remold the negative, preconceived ideas many of my students possess into positive ones, and in the process, foster an enjoyment, or at least greater acceptance, towards learning math and science.
Throughout the entire school year, I plan to incorporate real world, everyday examples of where we use and/or see math and science. I want to link my students' prior knowledge of math and science skills with these everyday occurrences, and continue to build onto this learning link with the new knowledge they gain in 5th grade.
To facilitate this desire, I have developed this blog. It offers a variety of instructional resources and teaching ideas to help 5th grade students gain a respect and greater excitement towards math and science. You will find information on how the learning of math and science relates to us, as humans, through such every day acts as playing on the playground, managing our money, cooking a meal, solving mysteries, redecorating our home, and just being able to smile and move our bodies each day. One can observe math and science all around us in our environments. We interface with them every day by how we view and wonder about the things around us. Math and science help clarify and make sense of so many, everyday thoughts we have. We just don't necessarily realize that's what we are doing as we look at a stop sign (polygon), pick up a grocery bag (force), watch the windmills as we drive down the highway (renewable energy), or critique an art piece (symmetry).
I'll leave you to browse my blog with a quote from Brian Greene in an article he wrote titled, Put a Little Science in Your Life, for the New York Times (2008, June 1). His quote relates to math just as easily."It’s striking that science is still widely viewed as merely a subject one studies in the classroom or an isolated body of largely esoteric knowledge that sometimes shows up in the “real” world in the form of technological or medical advances. In reality, science is a language of hope and inspiration, providing discoveries that fire the imagination and instill a sense of connection to our lives and our world."
