The Atoms Family Trees (Click for Project Description)
Teacher Reflection: First things first--while I worked on creating this project with Physics teacher Kurt Schwartz, the title of the project was all me! All jokes aside, the integration of topics and themes in this project is something that both Kurt and I are very proud of. I read the play The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel over the summer in one sitting on one warm night when I couldn't sleep very well. I fell in love with the familiar characters and the interesting relationships between the all women cast. Since we started the year with Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men, to continue with this play seemed to be a nice balance. Students discussed family throughout this project. They wrote about their families through different lenses--scientifically, culturally, and metaphorically. We did critique sessions where students read one another's writing and not only got to see one another's writing, they got to get a glimpse into one another's families. I got to learn so much about my students' writing styles as well as their relationships with their families. I also did the writing and was able to share a piece of my family's story with my students. For the exhibition of the work, two students, Allie and Ethan, designed the trees. They worked hard on creating templates that would produce the least amount of waste in terms of supplies. All the pieces of wood we purchased were used in their entirety to create the display. We had a guest speaker, Tim West from Cygnet Theatre, come to help us unravel the play before we went to watch it. We took one field trip to Cygnet Theatre to watch a spectacular production. Below the photos from that trip are some excerpts of student reactions to the viewing of the play. Tim came and visited us once more to debrief what we saw. We had a mini exhibition just outside our classrooms in the 9th grade wing. If I were to do this project again, the exhibition of the work is what I would like to improve. It would be wonderful to showcase the writings in a format where students were reading them to a group of people who were listening instead of displayed on a wall where it was very difficult to read--especially when some of the writings were pretty high up. Overall, this was a great beginning of the year project where we got to know each other just a little bit more deeply before we forge ahead into the rest of the year.
Student Reflections:
The Atoms Family is an individual project where we wrote about our family's scientifically, culturally, and metaphorically and made a model of an atom.Since this was an individual project I had to work on my own, which I usually dislike but it worked out because writing about family is very personal. Ian was my partner for one round and provided great feedback on writing metaphorically. The many critic sessions was very helpful, the critics helped modify my writing. I chose Carbon as my choice representative element for my atom model because carbon is in everything that is organic, which is like family. I decided to describe my family metaphorically through a poem. I had many critic sessions with my classmates to help me improve my poetry and I volunteered to read my poem to the class. I got more helpful feedback and from a bigger group. Writing my poem helped me realize that even though everyone in my family is always in each other's business. I realize that the dynamic makes it fun and what defines the cultural style of my family. We also love to share our style of food, music and love with our friends. We all need each other to feel complete and satisfied with living life. I will continue my family traditions, laugh and smile even when we don't have all the time in the world to give each other. Our exhibition turned out great my parents were very impressed and touched by my poems and atom model. I told them about the time consuming needle felting i did to make the neutrons, protons, and electrons and straightening the wire to shape the structure. I feel i went above and beyond with my work this project because of my creative thinking of making poems for my SCM writings and picking the most difficult Atom model to make and still adding my own twist.
~Andrea A.
The Atoms Family is an individual project where we wrote about our family's scientifically, culturally, and metaphorically and made a model of an atom.Since this was an individual project I had to work on my own, which I usually dislike but it worked out because writing about family is very personal. Ian was my partner for one round and provided great feedback on writing metaphorically. The many critic sessions was very helpful, the critics helped modify my writing. I chose Carbon as my choice representative element for my atom model because carbon is in everything that is organic, which is like family. I decided to describe my family metaphorically through a poem. I had many critic sessions with my classmates to help me improve my poetry and I volunteered to read my poem to the class. I got more helpful feedback and from a bigger group. Writing my poem helped me realize that even though everyone in my family is always in each other's business. I realize that the dynamic makes it fun and what defines the cultural style of my family. We also love to share our style of food, music and love with our friends. We all need each other to feel complete and satisfied with living life. I will continue my family traditions, laugh and smile even when we don't have all the time in the world to give each other. Our exhibition turned out great my parents were very impressed and touched by my poems and atom model. I told them about the time consuming needle felting i did to make the neutrons, protons, and electrons and straightening the wire to shape the structure. I feel i went above and beyond with my work this project because of my creative thinking of making poems for my SCM writings and picking the most difficult Atom model to make and still adding my own twist.
~Andrea A.
The Atoms Family, was a project between Physics and Humanities and that's why we had two products. For physics we had to pick a type of atom and an element from the periodic table. Once you chose, you had to make a structure representing the atom and element you chose. I decided on making a Bohr atom, with the element lithium. For the humanities portion of this project, our teacher gave us three words scientifically, culturally, and metaphorically (SCM). With this three words we had to represent our families. For a challenge option we could've chosen an element to represent our family for scientifically. I believe that I worked very well with balancing the two products that we had to make for this project, and I really enjoyed doing it. Usually I have a negative mindset with writing, I used to like it a lot when I was younger and then I stopped, but I feel that I'm starting to like it a little more after this project. I had a fun time making my SCM writing, especially because we had so much freedom with it. You could make it as unique and creative as you wanted. Something that went really well was revising it myself and also asking my peers to look through it, to make it as well written as possible. As well with the atom structure we had to make, we had a whole team critique session and it went really well. I am grateful for that critique session, it really bettered my structure. While we worked on this project we learned a lot about atoms and, elements from the periodic table. We used this knowledge both, to make the structure and on the scientifically portion of the writing assignment. During this project the learning outcomes that I used the most were written communication and work ethic. I chose work ethic because I really worked hard to make both of my products as praiseworthy as I could make them. I chose written communication because of the SCM writing piece. I revised it multiple times until it looked like I wanted it to. My definition for integrity is, doing something good when no one else is lookin; do that thing for yourself and that’s the class value I believe that I demonstrated most throughout this project. I had a peer that was having a little trouble getting started with his SCM writing, and I helped him out with it. I gave him some questions and he answered them. I told him to write down and that he got started, he kept writing and when he was done I critiqued it for him. In spite of the fact that the mini exhibition that we had wasn't very focused on this project, I’m still glad that my parents and other parents got to read everybody's writing pieces and got to see the atom structures. I would give myself an A+ on this project because, how I already expressed multiple times I worked hard on both of these pieces. It would've been very interesting to see how the exhibition would have turned out if it was equally focused on both And Now for Some History and this one.
~Mattia A.
~Mattia A.
The very first integrated project with Humanities and Math/Physics, it started off with brainstorming on how to write about our family in a Scientific, Cultural, and Metaphoric way. Something to rack our brains, and on top of that we were to create an atom of our choice, matching the number of protons, electrons, and neutrons. This project was another individual project, critique is a way of collaboration as in all of the projects upcoming. With the difficulty of writing about my family and the difficulty of creating the atom I chose I managed to work really well. Something I think I could have worked on in the project would be getting the materials on time, if I had the correct materials to create the product, I think I could have gotten it done earlier and improved it even more. I learned many things in this project, each one connecting to the class learning outcomes we use to grade. When I worked on the SCM writing and the atom my work ethic really shined through and managed to finish both these products before the due date to improve on it more. Collaboration and oral communication were shown when we had to receive critique from fellow peers, I read my writing to a couple classmates and they gave me critique I could improve upon. One thing I want to address would be the content, I think my SCM writing stands out more than the atom I created, but is still overall a good product. The class values are expected from everyone at school, because it should be normal to treat others with these values. These class values have been used quite a bit in this project. Empathy was shown during the critique session when people talked about the culture of their family sad, happy, because it was relatable. Grit and responsibility were definitely used when I was creating my atom, when it didn’t work I tried over and over again, and was responsible enough to get my work done. I respect my materials and my classroom, so I clean up after myself, it is integrity because no one needs to know and I’m doing in good will. During exhibition, the work presented I was naturally proud of because of the time and effort spend on it. The mini exhibition was really focused on the court cases because it was spread out in the 9th grade wing, but on the walls were our atoms and SCM writing. In terms of grades, I did everything to the best of my ability, finding creative solutions to my problems in all aspects. A thought that I would like to share would be how to make the exhibition better, instead of a couple of people on the SCM writings and Atoms maybe input shifts because it doesn’t receive much attention if no one presents it.
~Andrew T.
~Andrew T.
Mini-Exhibition Night!
Atoms Family Tree Display
Guest Speaker:
Tim West on The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds at Cygnet Theatre
"I really enjoyed the play The Effects of Gamma Rays on on Main in the Moon Marigolds. I feel that the set up was set up extremely well. It seemed very realistic. My favorite part was the newspaper on the windows. I don't know why but it was very aesthetically pleasing. Also, when Beatrice was ripping the papers of the windows, the windows brightened up. All of the actors were extremely amazing. My favorite actor was Beatrice. I loved all of the emotion she put in the play. It seemed really realistic." ~Mattia
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"I don't really have a personal connection to the play, but I liked how much Tilly loved science! I might go into a STEM field when I'm older, like environmental science, so I related to her on that level." ~Cooper
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"I loved the play as a whole but I especially loved the lighting and transitions. I think how the actors danced in relation to their relationships was really creative and a good way to use non blackout cuts. Along with the lighting, I think it was a beautifully creative way to show personality and not only eye-catching effects that were such a good addition to the scene." ~Teia Z.
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"I absolutely loved the play and especially loved the stage design. It was better than I could imagine. My favorite scene was when Beatrice had her breakdown and ripped off the newspaper off the windows and threw things around the room. My favorite actress was Beatrice and Nanny because Beatrice just did an amazing job and was exactly what I imagined her to be. I liked Nanny. She was perfect with her facial expressions and her costume. I surprisingly enjoyed Tillie's poem and the dances in between scenes."
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