Novelty

Challenge: How might we create "Curiosity Challenges" that are spontaneous that center students interests?  How might teachers and parents encourage this? 

Prototype: Ideas for how to start and guide a Curiosity Challenge


Curiosity Challenge Steps

Step One

What are you curious about?

Step Two

Start with an exploration into the topic. 


 Step Three

What did you first discover?

What questions do you have?

What else do you want to learn about it?


Step Four

Share your thoughts with others.

Examples

I'm curious about...

What's in the ocean? (K)

Brains (E)

How many animals are going extinct? (C)

Butterflies (I)



I looked up information...

Websites

Books

Videos

Articles

Music

I created artifacts about what I learned...

Pictures

Questions

Facts

Thoughts

I shared what I found interesting with others through...

Sharing facts 

Images

Storytelling 

Connections to math 

What's in the ocean?

 95% of all life lives in the ocean

The ocean covers 71% of the Earth.

The sun gives the ocean a blue tint.

Humans have only seen 5% of the ocean.



How many animals are going extinct?


Redlist

Animal Planet Extinct or Alive

Sunday Morning episode on "Extinction" 


Of all species that have existed on Earth, 99.9 percent are now extinct. Many of them perished in five cataclysmic events.


Scientists estimate that 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours. This is nearly 1,000 times the “natural” or “background” rate and, say many biologists, is greater than anything the world has experienced since the vanishing of the dinosaurs nearly 65m years ago.


There are 100 million different species co-existing with us on our planet - then between 10,000 and 100,000 species are becoming extinct each year.





Butterflies


30 Beautiful Facts About Butterflies | The Fact Site 

Fun fact: butterflies are color blind so they can't see how beautiful they are


How might we connect these topics to math?

Some ideas include:

Using sentence starters and links to find connections.

Examples:

LINKS:

OCEANS MATHEMATICS

THE NEUROSCIENCE OF MATH:

MATH MODELS + EXTINCTION