English/Language Arts
Explore lead sentences - starting with a question
Author Collard starts this Minute with not one, but two questions. Compare it to other Minutes beginning with questions. How is this lead the same? Different? What other choices could the author make to begin?
Explore paragraph style - the single word paragraph
The author makes an interesting choice with his second paragraph. It is a single word. Ask your students to take a closer look. Have them read it out loud. What does that paragraph break do for the reader? How does that break affect the listener? Can your students come up with some guidelines of places in their writing where they might try out a one word paragraph?
STEM
Explore aerodynamics
This Minute discusses the same force that Jan Adkins introduced on Monday with his Minute titled Flat Paper Flight - lift. Compare the lift discussed in terms of airplanes to the lift discussed here in the gliding animals. How are they the same? Are there differences?
Explore anatomy
Have students read carefully and explain the difference between flight muscles and patagia. Have them create a list of animals that fit in this category of gliders. What do they have in common with one another (make sure they look at habitat)? What are the differences? Can student look at each and identify the concept of lift at work? Can we use what we learn from these animals to assist in the design of better flying machines? How about better paper airplanes? How does this anatomical ability assist the animal in surviving?
Explore biomes - rainforest
Many of the gliding animals live in the rainforest. Use this Minute as a way to begin discussing and investigating the uniques features of the rainforest. What is it about this biome that makes gliding a good skill to have?
Research Skills
Explore effective keyword searching
Because animals that have gliding capabilities are not part of a scientifically organized classification, but rather occur across a variety of categories (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, etc.), they can be tricky to search for because of the tremendous number of unrelated results (chairs, porch gliders, airplanes, etc.). Have students try searching first for gliders and see how many results they get. Have them look at the first page of results to see how many of the results actually refer to animals. Now have them try the search by adding additional keywords. Add the word animal. How many results now? Does it matter whether you put the word animal before or after the word gliders? Have your students do some experimenting with adding a subtracting keyword and recording the number of results. [Note: In Google, put a dash [-] directly before a word to subtract it from the search. Example: gliders -airplanes] Can they come up with some guidelines for best searching strategies based on their results?
Explore lead sentences - starting with a question
Author Collard starts this Minute with not one, but two questions. Compare it to other Minutes beginning with questions. How is this lead the same? Different? What other choices could the author make to begin?
Explore paragraph style - the single word paragraph
The author makes an interesting choice with his second paragraph. It is a single word. Ask your students to take a closer look. Have them read it out loud. What does that paragraph break do for the reader? How does that break affect the listener? Can your students come up with some guidelines of places in their writing where they might try out a one word paragraph?
STEM
Explore aerodynamics
This Minute discusses the same force that Jan Adkins introduced on Monday with his Minute titled Flat Paper Flight - lift. Compare the lift discussed in terms of airplanes to the lift discussed here in the gliding animals. How are they the same? Are there differences?
Explore anatomy
Have students read carefully and explain the difference between flight muscles and patagia. Have them create a list of animals that fit in this category of gliders. What do they have in common with one another (make sure they look at habitat)? What are the differences? Can student look at each and identify the concept of lift at work? Can we use what we learn from these animals to assist in the design of better flying machines? How about better paper airplanes? How does this anatomical ability assist the animal in surviving?
Explore biomes - rainforest
Many of the gliding animals live in the rainforest. Use this Minute as a way to begin discussing and investigating the uniques features of the rainforest. What is it about this biome that makes gliding a good skill to have?
Research Skills
Explore effective keyword searching
Because animals that have gliding capabilities are not part of a scientifically organized classification, but rather occur across a variety of categories (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, etc.), they can be tricky to search for because of the tremendous number of unrelated results (chairs, porch gliders, airplanes, etc.). Have students try searching first for gliders and see how many results they get. Have them look at the first page of results to see how many of the results actually refer to animals. Now have them try the search by adding additional keywords. Add the word animal. How many results now? Does it matter whether you put the word animal before or after the word gliders? Have your students do some experimenting with adding a subtracting keyword and recording the number of results. [Note: In Google, put a dash [-] directly before a word to subtract it from the search. Example: gliders -airplanes] Can they come up with some guidelines for best searching strategies based on their results?
© Karen Sterling, 2018 - May be used for educational purposes without written permission