South Effingham Middle School embraces interdisciplinary instruction as a daily practice. At SEMS, subjects are interconnected, and we emphasize the importance of the integration of various disciplines. Our teachers collaborate weekly through PLC meetings with their colleagues, ensuring they stay informed about the curriculum in other classrooms to help with planning interdisciplinary lessons. It is important each week that teachers collaborate with their teammates and understand what is happening in other classrooms to be able to tie their vocabulary, standards, etc. into their classroom subjects. During Weekly PLCs, teachers review district pacing guides to help with classroom instruction and incorporate other subjects including CTAE. This knowledge exchange enables them to weave vocabulary, standards, and related concepts seamlessly into their subjects. We have intentionally scheduled time during our weekly meetings to facilitate and ensure the success of this approach to instruction. 

Teachers have accumulated interdisciplinary lessons from our current and previous school years. Teachers use district pacing guides to help plan and implement 

In one of the 6th-grade interdisciplinary lessons, students worked through the engineering design process where they were tasked with inventing an alien species capable of thriving on one of the eight planets in our solar system, excluding Earth. This engaging lesson encouraged students to follow the design process step by step to bring their extraterrestrial ideas to life while matching up with the Georgia Standards of Excellence. The driving question for students was, "How can I design an alien that takes on the characteristics of a planet?" Documenting in their journals, students were required to research a specific planet and design special characteristics based on the facts they researched about their planet. Students used ELA standards, where they were learning about inferences, to create alien characteristics. Students designed their alien models based on their inferences and their planet information. Once models were designed students used their math standards and used formulas to calculate the age and weight of the alien. Students used the amount of gravitational pull to calculate how much they would weigh on their planet and the age of their alien. Students then gathered the information into a "passport" that would allow their alien to visit Earth. Students presented the information and their passports to their classmates through a gallery walk where they would analyze each information and decide what planet that "alien" came from. 

Aligned with SEMS' interdisciplinary approach, sixth-grade students also took part in crafting an imaginative realm and created narratives within the world they created. Students in ELA developed a fantastical world and were tasked with addressing various aspects including mathematical dimensions, economic considerations for social studies, climatic and geological elements for science, as well as architectural and artistic facets for engineering and art integration. In the realm of language arts, students were challenged to conduct research and then weave their narrative pieces around significant events in their created worlds.