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TRANSCRIPT
Copyright © 2014 Orange County Department of Education. All Rights Reserved.
Title: Melinda Heights Elementary: Chasing Storms-Weather Unit
Chasing Storms is what we like to call a STEM project. It is taking science, technology,
engineering, and math and integrating them so the students have a more comprehensive
learning experience. Chasing Storms is a project that we have been using to integrate into
our weather unit. The children are first taught about the basics of weather and then they are
then assigned a city where they had to follow the weather for that city and enter data into a
spreadsheet. After research, we get out our storyboards and we write out what we want to do.
And draw it. And usually we have to, like, plan out. It's kind of hard because, like, we need to
plan out it very carefully so it works specifically how we wanted it to. We took a difficult
concept in our science standards, weather, and tried to use something they loved to do,
gaming, and combine the two so that they could showcase their knowledge in a way that was
very meaningful to them. First, we learned about how to code and program the game and
then we used our storyboards to do the layout of the game. The kids themselves came up
with their concepts and how they wanted to showcase those concepts. We are using iPads,
Chromebooks and many Apple devices. We will use GamePress and Sketch Nation. It's the
Apple we're actually making the game and you can put down, like, people and ground and
stuff. You can make 'em move and shoot and then you can put down obstacles. Then you
could put down, like, stuff if he touches it then, like, the game's over. I have chosen layers of
the atmosphere as my game and each level is a layer of the atmosphere and we found stuff
like airplanes fly in one layer, satellites rotate in one layer. They found ways to move their
characters. They found depth of, like, layering on the game that nobody else had done and I
think if I had said, "No, you have to do something maybe more simplistic or more realistic," I
would have kind of curbed that enthusiasm. So it's still knowledge, it's still teaching about
layers of the atmosphere but they kind of went a little crazy and utilized something that they
really love and that's science fiction. We have two classes working on this project right now
and our plan is that, as soon as all of our games are created, then we will trade games and
have the other--groups from the other class play the game and then give feedback so that we
can edit and make our games better before the final presentation. I think teachers need to be
willing to learn from their students. Teachers of my generation are often afraid to use
technology and so I would say to teachers, "Don't be afraid. We don't have to know
everything." We're really the vehicle in the classroom. We are the one to oversee the learning
and, if it's the 21st century, we need to get those books out of here and open them up to the
new and current knowledge that is there and then not be afraid when we--to have to just kind
of stay in step with them and sometimes a step behind them. That it's okay.
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