St. Catherine Catholic School Grade six students shot for the stars in a hybrid science project about colonizing our celestial neighbour put together by three passionate teachers at the school.
Kristie Lorenz, a Grade six teacher at St. Catherine says the project incorporated all four core subjects- Math, Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts, in an artistic setting to allow students to get hands-on with subjects that can sometimes feel quite linear.
“Three of us Grade six teachers got together and we wanted to do a thematic plan based on our sky science unit,” she says. “We thought about Mars colonization because its something that’s in the news sometimes, and we incorporated all of the four core subjects and art because we are an art school.”
Lorenz says the project allowed students to think outside the box and presented unique challenges for the kids to intermingle the five subjects into one cohesive plan.
“The benefit to doing thematic plans is instead of just compartmentalizing their learning into subjects, they see how everything works together,” she says. “Science is not just an anomaly by itself, so they can see how it all works together like how you can take your math into social studies, and how you can take your reading and writing skills to use them when solving problems in science.”
Additionally, Lorenz says working in groups was quite beneficial for her students, as it teaches them real-world skills that can be applied when they enter the workforce. She adds that “every single group” ran into frustrations; however, through working as a team, they managed to pull themselves out of those situations and remain on task.
“It’s a recognition that kids need to learn how to work in small groups and big groups in the workforce nowadays and so just coming up with ideas about how to get them up and moving and working in those groups so that they’re ready for their future.”
As a long-time teacher, Ms. Lorenz says she benefitted as much as the students did. She says developing new and innovative learning opportunities keeps her students engaged in the lesson, as well as herself.
“I feel like I have to keep evolving and keep working on my plans to make them more hands-on and more artistic and more STEM-focused to keep the kids engaged, and even me engaged because if you do the same thing over and over again it gets boring.”
Lorenz says the students not only met her expectations, but exceeded them during the process, and says plans to continue hands-on learning opportunities at St. Catherines are in place for the future.
