Embedded Files
Interactive Buddha Digital Notebooks
Interactive Buddha Digital Notebooks
After learning about Prince Siddhartha and the origins of Buddhism, students create a book with circuits to illustrate each major stage of his life. We start with card stock and fold it in order to form a booklet. With each stage, students represent it with a picture and a short caption. Copper tape is then used to create a circuit which students connect to alligator clips and a Makey Makey board connected to Scratch. When the circuit is touched, it triggers a script in Scratch which will expand and give more details on the stages of Siddhartha's/Buddha's life and the origins of Buddhism.
The addition of making augments the lesson’s goals and outcomes by investing children in critical thinking and the creative process. They must strategically select the most important words for for their books and succinctly summarize each step from the text within Scratch. The images they choose must also be carefully selected to best highlight each stage of Prince Siddhartha's journey to the path of Enlightenment. Students must also decide what is the best way to write a script to interact with the pages in their books.
Common Core Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.2
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.5
Describe how a text presents information (e.g., sequentially, comparatively, causally).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.7
Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.
Next Generation Science Standards
MS-ETS1-1.
Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
MS-PS2-3.
Ask questions about data to determine the factors that affect the strength of electric and magnetic forces.
MS-PS2-5.
Conduct an investigation and evaluate the experimental design to provide evidence that fields exist between objects exerting forces on each other even though the objects are not in contact.
Makey Makey Logic Puzzles
Makey Makey Logic Puzzles
Students began with writing riddles for concrete objects that could be connected to the Makey Makey Boards with alligator clips. Using the Scratch website, students programmed coding to be triggered by touching the answers to the riddles.
See the Makey Makey Website for further information on this lesson.
Common Core Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.4: Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.5: Include multimedia components (e.g., graphics, images, music, sound) and visual displays in presentations to clarify information.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.A: Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.B: Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, and description, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.2: Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/experiments, or technical processes.
Next Generation Science Standards
3-PS2-3: Ask questions to determine cause and effect relationships of electric or magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with each other.
4-PS3-2: Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.
MS-ETS1-2: Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
HS-PS3-1: Create a computational model to calculate the change in the energy of one component in a system when the change in energy of the other component(s) and energy flows in and out of the system are known.
HS-PS3-3: Design, build, and refine a device that works within given constraints to convert one form of energy into another form of energy.
Tour of Athens Illustrated Map
Tour of Athens Illustrated Map
After learning about the key sites during Athens Golden Age, students created an interactive map with LED circuits which lit up the key locations and gave further information about the achievements of the Greeks.
This circuit was completed with the clothespin wand and helps highlight key vocabulary, the temple at Delphi, and how the Greek language has influenced our own.
This circuit was a push button circuit created with 3D foam tape and conductive tape to highlight the different types of columns found at the Acropolis. It illustrates three different types of columns created by the Greeks which we still use in architecture today!
This circuit was created by a tab that is pulled to complete the circuit and highlights a marble workshop and how sculpture changed from the Egyptians to the Greeks to become more lifelike.
The addition of making augments the lesson’s goals and outcomes by investing children in critical thinking and the creative process. Students must decide how best to represent the key information from each section of the text. The integration of the map, lights and circuits that are completed in different ways also requires critical thinking in order to decide which one highlights each key location best.
Common Core Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.2
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.5
Describe how a text presents information (e.g., sequentially, comparatively, causally).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.7
Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.
Next Generation Science Standards
MS-ETS1-1.
Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
MS-PS2-3.
Ask questions about data to determine the factors that affect the strength of electric and magnetic forces.
MS-PS2-5.
Conduct an investigation and evaluate the experimental design to provide evidence that fields exist between objects exerting forces on each other even though the objects are not in contact.
Empathizing With Characters Through Literature
Empathizing With Characters Through Literature
After reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and completing a cause-and-effect chart, students program robots with a color to represent mood and an action to represent what the character did at a location from the book. Students draw a map with symbols to represent different settings in the story and then program the robot to maneuver through the different settings with their actions and colors. Students are assessed using this rubric.
The addition of making augments the lesson’s goals and outcomes by investing children in critical thinking and the creative process. Students must connect the character's actions with programming an action for the robot. The character's emotions must be inferred and then programmed and represented on the robot by different colors. Furthermore, evidence from the text must be gathered for the different settings in order to create symbols and draw a map of the town which the robot must then maneuver through.
Common Core Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6-8.1
Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6-8.3
Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6-8.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6-8.6
Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.7
Integrate quantitative or technical information expressed in words in a text with a version of that information expressed visually (e.g., in a flowchart, diagram, model, graph, or table).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.9
Compare and contrast the information gained from experiments, simulations, video, or multimedia sources with that gained from reading a text on the same topic.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.6-8.7
Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6-8.4
Present claims and findings, emphasizing salient points in a focused, coherent manner with relevant evidence, sound valid reasoning, and well-chosen details; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6-8.5
Integrate multimedia and visual displays into presentations to clarify information, strengthen claims and evidence, and add interest.(MS-ETS1-4)
Next Generation Science Standards
MS-ETS1-1.
Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
Maker Project -
Maker Project -
Eight Parts of Speech Interative Project
Eight Parts of Speech Interative Project
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