Science for contemporary world I

I have a lot of commentaries to share about the new course of Science for Contemporary World. They are so many that I have been unable to find the time to write them all. So I have decided that a little part is better than nothing, and I am going to explain you two simple points:

Videos

Students have a lot of problems with original English without subtitles, I have checked it when I have shown them a rather simple one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0&feature=player_embedded

and from now on I am going to use subtitled videos. I have to show them these ones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lugpgsp4PQA , some 45 minutes about black matter and energy. Original subtitles are in greek, but there is an automatic translation that seems to work quite well. I'm not sure about the language I will choose (English or Catalan) in the final subtitles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU Home, the film. The English voice and the images are incredibly beautiful. Let's see if they are able to manage with English subtitles.

Rubrica

I've constructed a rubrica to correct the work I asked the students to do in Theme 0. I have left it here, in case you want to have a look. It follows the rule of adding English as a way to improve their marks, never as a penalization.

Link to the rubric

Home project

Incredible images of the Earth to be used in Geography, Social Science, History, Biology or simply to be enjoyed as a high definition film in English with subtitles.

Click here to see the film :HOME

Biological webquest

I've begun a webquest with 3rd Biology. The site is in English, though they can write the documents in Catalan and reference pages are in Spanish or Catalan. Anyway, at least, they have to understand the text.

Here is the address:

https://sites.google.com/site/decalegsobremediambientangles/

Surprisingly, pupils in third course seem to translate more easily than those in fourth!!

Using English texts in the classroom

I've tried using one-page text in the classroom with the 3rd of Biology and the 4th of IT.

It's not extremely difficult for them, I think it's a good tool to begin with in CLIL. Of course, they complain, some of them are absolutely convinced they will never be able to understand that... but almost all the pupils have enough level to try, at least.

I've used two different approaches:

• Asking them to underline and look for in the dictionary the unknown words. It has some failures, the main one is that some pupils underline words already known and translate them, not worrying about the meaning of the more difficult ones. It's their way to obtain a positive mark without working
• Asking them to translate to Catalan. It's a bit more boring, but at least they are obliged to fully understand the text. It works better with short text like this:
  http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/20-tips-thatll-make-your-blog-work.html

It may be interesting trying other approaches, like asking them to answer questions or underlining some information, or using occasionally shorter texts...

El Joan i jo (la Sïlvia) varem anar a la trobada de CLIC de la UAB. Va ser interessant, encara que la part universitària cau una mica lluny. Hi havia bàsicament exemples d'activitats concretes fetes per professors des de 3er de primària a Batxillerat.

El que no hi havia era cap model organitzatiu de centre...

La pàgina web del grup organitzador és http://grupsderecerca.uab.cat/clilsi/

La pàgina web de les jornades, http://jornades.uab.cat/semiimmersio2011/

I l'etiqueta pel twitter és #aiclecat

Encara no han penjat res més que una salutació, però es suposa que ens uns pocs dies haurien d'haver les presentacions que va fer la gent

En fi, a veure com organitzem el curs vinent

Using video in Biology

In the 3rd level of Biology I've showed them a two minutes video about the digestive system.I asked them to write down what they have understood




It was the fisrt time I tried something like this, and I have to confess it wasn't a very successfull experience. I think it's better to use subtitle videos or give them the text. I'l try this way next time

PROBLEMS : SYSTEMS of EQUATIONS in TWO VARIABLES (x ,y)

1.- The addition of two numbers is 100 and the difference between them is 80.

Try to find both numbers

2.- And find two other numbers whose addition is 93 and their difference is 21.

3.- One kilogram of apples is 0,5 Euros more expensive than one kilo of bananas.

If you pay 3,5 Euros for one kilo of apples and one of bananas,

how much money will one kilo of each fruit cost?

4.- The ticket of the swiming pool is 2 Euros cheaper than the ticket of the cinema.

If you have 10 Euros and you go to the pool in the morning and to see a movie in the afternoon, but after that, you still have 4 Euros left, how much does it cost each ticket?

5.- Imagine that you pay 50 Euros for a jeans and a green shirt. You don't remember how much does it cost every thing, but you know that the pants were 8 Euros more expensive than the shirt.

Try to find the price of both separately.

6.- In a restaurant, you can find two type of sandwitches, one of cheese for 2 Euros each, and

another of ham for 3,5 Euros each one.

Last week, 52 sandwitches were sold and the total amount of cash was 149 Euros.

Try to calculate the number of each sandwith that was sold.

7.- Yesterday I went on sales, and I paid only 90,50 Euros for a white shirt and a sweater which

cost 110 Euros before sales.

The price of the shirt was reduced 20 % and the sweater's price had a discount of 15 % .

What was the original prices of each article going on sales?

8.- A stock market investor put part of his capital of 28000 $ in a bank B1 with an interest rate of

8 %, and separately, he puts the rest of the money in another bank B2 at an interest rate of 6 %.

For the first part of the money, the investor will get 200 $ more benefits than for the second part, how much money has he invest in each bank ?

9.- The salary of a salesman who works on a commission- only basis, is equal to a fixed steady part plus some percentatge( called commision ) that depens on the sales he can do every month.

If this salesman sells 2000 Euros, his salary would be 1200 Euros, but if he sells 2500 Euros then his salary would rise to 1300 Euros.

How much would he have to sell to get a salary of 1500 Euros?

Try to find the percentatge he earns depending on the sales he does.

10.- The ticket's price of an intercity bus line, depens on the kilometers.

So, you pay 18 Euros to go to a city 500 Km far from here but you pay 33 Euros for another city 1000 Km away.

How much would you pay if you wanna go 750 Km from here?

Hi people! soon you will have the answers...

by JL