Many of our Duval County Public School teachers are taking the curriculum and adapting it to create innovative and fun lessons to help convey material to their students. #TeachALessonTuesday highlights and shares these unique approaches.
During a recent lesson in Ms. Lori Levin’s eighth-grade science classroom at Mandarin Middle School, students went through the different rock cycles that explain the development of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. Ms. Levin often asked students in-depth questions, requiring them to use critical thinking skills and information retained from sixth and seventh grades to formulate answers about weathering, erosion, and rock formation.
Later, students took a “Rocky Journey” to further identify patterns within a rock cycle and relate them to surface and sub-surface events. “Rocky Journey” was a dice game with each die corresponding to a certain event, like tectonic plates moving or sand washing onto the shore. To illustrate their understanding of their “Rocky Journey,” students drew a comic strip telling their story through the rock cycle.
