STUDENTS APPLY LEARNING IN MAKERSPACE
Fifth-grade science teacher Jamie Long sometimes wonders if students really grasp what she’s teaching in the classroom.
But when her students get excited about using a vocabulary word such as “undulation,” to correctly describe a model’s use of elevations, Long’s doubts are quieted.
Even better is that students are gleaning knowledge from her lessons and applying it to a real-life project. This school year, fifth-grade students from Village Tech Schools have partnered with the Tri-City Animal Shelter and Adoption Center to design and conduct research on a plan for Cedar Hill’s first dog park.
Once a week, fifth-graders gather in the Forge, the school’s 6,500-square-foot makerspace, to work on their project.
Long’s group of students is focused on the environmental aspects of building a park while other…