Student and Teacher Exemplars
Working alongside Galileo professional developers, teachers have created a number of inquiry-based studies. When designing and developing these studies, teachers work collaboratively through the io design process with their mentor and colleagues. As teachers design tasks for and with their students, teachers are asked to consider how what they are creating is:
- situated in a larger context of a discipline and body of knowledge
- allowing the students to see themselves as designers
- allowing the students to engage in work that is personally important and meaningful
| "The scientific mind does not so much
provide the answers as ask the right questions."
Claude Levis Strauss |
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 Artistry
of the Land, Ancient Stories and Art of Our First Nations People
- Grades 2/3Congratulations to Lorraine Flavelle, Pam Irving, Barb Martin and Richard Gaskell as co-honourees of the international 2001-02 SIGTel Online Learning Award. The teachers and children of Dr. Morris Gibson School, Millarville School and Red Deer Lake School worked with Galileo Educational Network on this award-winning project. |
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Heritage
Homes of Okotoks: Past, Present and Future - Grade 2/3 Okotoks is a community with many heritage buildings and so the study of the past, present and future became a real life possibility for the students. Their first step was to go on a heritage walk around Okotoks. Using all of their senses and working together in groups, they began to gain an understanding of what it would be like to be inside of these buildings in the past. |
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Journey
of Risk and Discovery - Grades 2/3 Many of the journeys are like a flowing river. Some journeys are pleasant and require very little effort simply floating on a warm sunny day and then suddenly things change where we can loose control like rapids on a river. At the end of a journey we are changed in some way. What is a journey? Would you go? Who would you take? Why would you go? |
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Millarville -
Grades 1-6 This year being the Millennium and also the 25th anniversary of the Millarville Community Library. This project started the teachers talking about what they could study with the students that would help them gain an understanding of the importance of celebrating the past and also, at the same time, looking at the present. |
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Richness
of Words: A Journey into the Past - Grade 2/3 As we look, feel, smell and listen to the artifacts that we can find in Okotoks can we begin to understand the stories that they can tell us about the history of our community. Through using our senses are we able to make our own connections, viewpoints and opinions more important to ourselves and the people we know. As the grade 2 and 3 students explored the past, they made a movie of their findings. |
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What
Stories Do We Have To Tell? - Grade 1/2
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Endangered...Extinct -
Grade 1 Nature has wiped the slate clean of up to 96% of all species, and provided the survivors with a world full of opportunities into which they can diversify. a number of times throughout Earth's history. These are the mass extinction's, when more than 50% of the Earth's species vanish in the geological instant of a few million years. |
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Exploring
Kainai Plants and Culture - Grade 4 The first thunderclap of spring tells us that the Thunder Medicine Bundle may be opened. Sipatsimo (or sweetgrass) and aakiika'ksimii (or sage), our most sacred healing herbs of mind and spirit, grow here at the Belly Buttes, our sacred Sundance site. It is all here: the land, the plants, our ancestors and our future. One is held within the other. You cannot know the land without knowing the plants placed here by the creator. You cannot know the creator without knowing the plants. You cannot know the plants and their healing powers without hearing the stories. It is one and the same. |
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Fish
Story - Grade 1 The Kindergarten and Grade 1 scientists in Mrs. Boxma's class are investigating fish. They have generated many questions and are busy searching for answers. They are extending their knowledge by carefully observing the fish that live in their classroom aquarium and by researching in depth the lives and habits of one particular species. So far they have discovered that fish have bones, blood and scales. They figured this out when they cooked and ate some jackfish as part of their research study. These students are helping others develop some important understandings about many aquatic creatures. |
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Robotics -
Grades 1 - 4 Engaging students in science and engineering inquiry. |
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Waste in
Our World - Grade 4 Garbage day used to mean pitching out old newspapers, bottles and soup cans with the rest of the trash. Today many Canadian households are now choosing to dispose of their junk in other ways. Your task is to determine how typical you are. For one week you will be keeping track of what happens to the following waste products in your home: paper, metal cans, glass bottles, plastics or products requiring special disposal such as used oil, paint, tires, etc. |
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Big
Valley: Then and Now - Grade 3, 4, 5, 6 Culture can be defined as the way of life of a group of people. In other words, how we as people interact with our environment and with each other. In our study we will look at the cultural aspects of Big Valley at the height of the railway boom, 1910-20's and at present day. Through this study students will determine what aspects of Big Valley culture were important to pass on to their generation from those in the past and what aspects of Big Valley culture will be important to pass on to future generations. |
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Frankenstein -
Grades 4 and 5 A story comes to life in more ways than one. The grade 4/5 and 5/6 classes began their journey by reading the story of Frankenstein. Soon, conversation was flying – Do scientists have moral obligations? Who controls scientific knowledge? Is making a human okay? Just because we can, does it mean we should? Students soon began an anatomy investigation, holding debates around current moral issues, and decided to make a movie. “Everything in moderation Frankenstein. " "Nothing in moderation Clerval. |
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The
Family Farm in Spirit River, Alberta - Grades 5/6 Farmers feed the world. Sometimes it is easy to forget how important the work and lives of farmers is. From the earliest arrival of settlers more than 100 years ago, farm life has been the backbone of our province. This study looks at the past, present and future of farming in Alberta by concentrating on Spirit River, a small agricultural community with a rich history and an important future. |
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History
of Cowboy Culture - Grades 3, 6, 8  Stories of ranching and cowboy life have been sung and told around campfires in the hills surrounding the Bar U Ranch for over a century. Two grade 3 classes from Red Deer Lake School, a grade 2/3 class from Millarville School, and students in grade 6 & 8 from McLaren School worked together on an inquiry study into the culture, the challenges and the future of the cowboy. The untold stories, poems and memories of cowboy life are retold in video, poems and stories through the voices of the children. |
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The
Hobbit - Grade 5 Starting with the question, "What does it take to leave the comfort of home to travel to unknown lands?" this group of children and their teachers embarked on a year-long inquiry. |
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Naming The West - Grades 2, 5, 9 Did you know that when you read the names on a map you're actually reading history? What is there about naming that intrigued these students? Using old maps, historical documents, local histories and lore, these students brought to life the place names on this map. If you look behind the names of the places, locations and people on their map, the lives and stories of their ancestors come to life and reflect their heritage. Naming the West connected 22 teachers and 450 grade 2, 5 and 9 students from 11 schools within Foothills School Division, Chief Old Sun School (Siksika), and Chief Jacob Bearspaw School (Eden Valley) with education mentors from Galileo Educational Network, archivists from the Okotoks Museum and the Museum of the Highwood. This year long partnership enabled the teachers and students to work as: historians, archivists, toponymists and designers of authentic, innovative educational learning experiences that reached outside of the traditional classroom setting.
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Rural
Roots - Farming in the Palliser Triangle - Grade 9 Social Studies,
Language Arts and French In the mid 1800s Captain John Palliser launched an expedition to study this area and its potential as an area for agriculture. Well, his reports were not exactly encouraging. He thought that the land was, "ill suited for civilization, a region of short grasses and shrubs and desert-like conditions, where cacti grew along the coulee ridge." |
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Virtual Museum - Grade 7 The work that the grade 7 students from Calgary Science School embarked upon is truly authentic, intellectual work. Students were invited to re-mix images and designs from historical documents to produce fresh interpretations of the stories that helped to shape Canada’s past and our current national identity. The digital re-mixes that these students created are now on display in the Calgary Science School’s own Virtual Museum. In addition to these extraordinary digital collages, students produced original historical fiction movies which are also showcased on the website. The CSS Virtual Museum will soon be permanently linked to the “Canada in a Box” display at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull Quebec. The work of these students was real work that was created for a real purpose and audience.
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The
Blue Planet - Grade 8 The blue planet is unique because it is where water exists as a liquid. It is because of this fact that life in all its diversity thrives. When the number of human beings was small their effect on the planet was also small. But over the past 100 years the number of people on earth has exploded. |
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Bridging
the Gap - Grade 7 The fact that man has the ability to take materials from the surrounding world and join them, shape them and alter them to create amazing structures is most intriguing. The fact that our grade seven students can learn these design principles is even more intriguing. (Earl Sorensen) |
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Students from the small town in Cardston in Southern Alberta, 50 km East of Waterton Lakes National Park studiedin which bears and humans might coexist. Bears have been on thelandscape for thousands of years. However, due to expanding populations and increasing energy needs, the habitat of the grizzly bear has decreased drastically over the past century. Certainly we are grateful bears are still on the landscape. Would we respect our wilderness as much and value its beauty as a place of hallowed solitude if the great bear was no longer with us? Would the forest ecosystem itself be effected by the loss of this amazing animal? |
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This collaborative water study of the Bow River Watershed t was conducted by students in six different schools across three school jurisdictions. The Bow River starts at the Bow Glacier in Banff National Park. The Bow River Basin is a network of rivers, streams, icefields, wetlands and springs. It is home to more than one million Albertans and welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. Valued for its beauty, and as a home for diverse fish, wildlife and plant communities, it is under immense pressure from a growing urban community and various land use impacts.
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Our
Farming Roots in Castor - Grades 3, 4, 5, 6 Since its beginning, the town of Castor has been involved in the agriculture industry. Many changes have been made in farm production. Residents of our community have wonderful stories of their lives in rural Alberta. A lot of these stories revolve around feeding the family. Recently there has been an interest in old varieties of seed and rare or old breeds of animals. These are referred to as Heritage Seeds and Breeds. |
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Mokakioyis-Meyopimatisiwin - Grades 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 The Mokakioyis/Meyopimatisiwin project is an ethno-ecological inquiry that seeks to digitally preserve traditional Aboriginal knowledge in an interactive online environment. Students, Aboriginal elders, cultural and spiritual advisors, eminent scholars, teachers, new media artists, and educational mentors collaborated to conduct this ethno-ecological study. Together we are digitally preserving traditional knowledge online. This site contains photographs, video and sound recordings, maps, and text-based information resources. Come join our online community! Share your comments pictures and stories with us all. |
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Robotics -
Grades 5 - 9 Engaging students in science and engineering inquiry. |
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Structures -
Grade 7 "How has the need to be strong and to support various necessary loads influenced the development of all sorts of creatures, devices and systems?" J.E. Gordon This is wonderfully intriguing question about structures, both naturally occurring and humanly constructed. In speaking about "the need to be strong", it asks why things don't fall down, which is an issue of mechanics, and why they don't fall apart, which involves issues of aesthetics, philosophy and all the social sciences. Human beings seem to be intuitively attuned to structures. |
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Democracy
in Iraq - Social 10, Social 30 Two classes in two different cities researched and prepared for a videoconference discussion around topical and contentious issues. They were guided and supported by a political scientist. There are ten video extracts available on this page that tells a part of the larger story of the experience of Susanne Bechtold, a teacher at the National Sports School. |
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Fallen
Angels - English 33 Webquest project on the novel Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers. The project looks at understanding the novel by looking at different points of view of the people involved in the the Vietnam War. |
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Global
Interdependency - Social and English 20 To look is one thing To see what you look at is another To understand what you see is yet another thing To Act on what you know is all that matters - Taoist Saying |
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Lord
of the Flies - English/Drama integrated study from Highwood
High What kid did not fantasize, at one time or another, about being left alone, completely unsupervised, for a long period of time? Imagine your delight at being able to say or do whatever you pleased, whenever you pleased? You could eat what you wanted, go to bed when you decided, miss school, and behave as you please without reproach. You could be your own master. This scenario is presented by William Golding in his novel The Lord of the Flies but it is not what you might have imagined. |
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Media
Literacy- English 10/13, 20/23 & 30/33 In this project you will examine print advertising and how it affects us. You will have the chance to develop your own ad in response to what you have learned. |
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Our
World, Our Voices, Our Responsibility - Social 23 "We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on." Richard Feynman |
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Body
in Balance - Science 16 An in-depth look at the body's internal systems. |
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Chemical
Warfare - Chemistry 10,20,30 Chemical weapons are a very real danger in the world today. The Canadian Government, in response to this danger, has announced a 170 million dollar, 5 year research and technology initiative to improve Canada's ability to respond to CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) incidents. The government is currently accepting proposals to determine how the money should be spent. |
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Energy
Use and Abuse - Chemistry 30 Climate change is a very current issue that affects the lives of all of us. This global concern has been discussed since 1979 and has since been formally addressed in the signing of the Kyoto Protocol. The Canadian Government in its efforts to comply with the Kyoto Protocol is asking for proposals on how Canada can best reduce its emmisions of greenhouse gases to contribute to the reduction of global warming. |
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Reality
Bites - Biology 30 You and your partner are biologists who have more than a few reasons to be concerned about drug use and abuse in our society. Specifically, you are concerned about one of the people described in the profiles that have been provided. It seems that many people who take drugs are unaware of how these chemicals interact with their body systems, and you believe that if only people knew about the hazards associated with certain drugs, they would stop their reckless consumption. |
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Robotics -
Physics Engaging students in science and engineering inquiry. |
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Survivor -
Biology 20 A Biology 20 Inquiry Project. Advances in medical technology and science have made organ procurement, the search and transfer of organs and tissue from one body to another, a very important issue. Since the demand for healthy organs far exceeds the supply, many questions enter this debate blending medicine with politics, ethics, research, religion, and other concerns. |
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Use
Your Brain - Biology 30 Disorders of the brain are prominent in today's society. Celebrities, realtives, people close to us all fall victim to these dibilitating disorders. Disease does not discriminate |