Most kids in American schools think that food just comes from the grocery store. So a new curriculum for first and second graders gives teachers and students an opportunity to talk about the more complex reality. Jones Valley Teaching Farm, an urban farm in Birmingham, Alabama, uses the curriculum on-site and in schools, teaching students about everything from planting seeds to marketing produce. The farm also partners with Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi to tell the stories of people working in the food industry across the south. A version of the kit for older students is now in the works to make the curriculum available to more schools.
Tag: Primary & Secondary Schools
Why Minecraft is the Learning Tool of the Future
Minecraft is a game that allows students to complete adventures, build worlds, talk to their friends and learn about digital citizenship. And while schools don’t usually have trouble getting kids interested in video games, they are finding it challenging to teach students about internet ethics and online safety at an early-enough age. But Minecraft is a great tool to teach digital citizenship, and enables students to learn about communication, collaboration and critical thinking. Check out this video to learn about the game and how teachers are using it.
This Innovative Philadelphia School Has a Really Good Reason for Downgrading Its Computers
Philadelphia’s award-winning Science Leadership Academy is making a big switch: from $1,500 Mac laptops to the $300 Chromebook 11. The new, inexpensive laptops run on Google’s Chrome operating system, support web applications, and store user information in the cloud rather than locally. The education market still favors Macs, but SLA’s principal, Christopher Lehmann, points out that the Chromebooks can make a long-time dream of ed-tech proponents — the 1-to-1 model where schools have a device for every student — come true. Dell is helping to fund the computers for the school’s two campuses, and will help SLA to create a “center of excellence” to promote the school’s inquiry-driven and project-based approach to learning. Check out the video by Lehmann to learn about the school’s vision for using Chromebooks to enable students to create their own learning experiences.
This Teacher Made a Viral Photo to Teach About Internet Safety
Here’s a great example of an effective lesson. This middle school teacher took to the Internet to teach her students about online security and privacy. This photo has been shared tens of thousands of times and received hundreds of thousands of likes on Facebook. The lesson in Internet safety is especially relevant right now as there are 5.6 million users in violation of Facebook’s minimum age of 13, and kids are becoming more and more active on internet-connected devices from phones to tablets to computers.
If Everyone Could Send Their Kids Here, They’d Be a Whole Lot Smarter
Here’s a reason to take students on field trips to art museums: an Education Next study found that enriching field trips help students develop more knowledge about art, create stronger critical thinking skills, exhibit more empathy and higher tolerance, and display more interest in art and culture. Students from rural and high-poverty schools benefit even more from cultural field trips. The less students have been exposed to art and cultural enrichment in the past, the more dramatic the gains are. School field trips are an important part of developing well-rounded and thoughtful students, and an excellent reason for school administrators to consider the academic and financial policies that are making it less and less common for students to get out of the classroom and into a museum.