Canadian Space Agency Sponsors Guest Speaker at Our School! – blog post #47

 Just three days after returning from their Christmas holidays the science and math students at St. Pius X High School are in for a special treat! Sponsored by the Canadian Space Agency, Adam Vigneron, graduate student at Carleton University will be speaking to a select group of senior St. Pius X High School students in the school library during period two.

Born and raised in Wilcox SK, Adam holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics from the University of Saskatchewan.  While at the UofS, he was an active member of their Space Design Team (USST), competing in a space elevator challenge (focus area: wireless power transmission) and a Canadian nanosatellite competition.  Adam also spent a term studying space physics at U of Tromsø in northern Norway.  In his leisure time, Adam enjoys waterskiing, playing cards, curling, and is an avid scuba diver.

While at St. Pius X High School, Adam will also be facilitating workshops on Solar Max with two of our grade nine classes. During these interactive 75 minute workshops students will be engaged in a variety of hands on activities. He will also be lunching with the science and math teachers; they are looking forward to discussing what essential skills he took away from high school with him.

If you are going to be in Ottawa on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 and would like to be invited to Adam’s 10:20 a.m. presentation please send me a direct message on twitter (@EurekaTeacher) with your email address and I will extend one to you personally.

You can be sure that there will be a follow up blog posting about this exciting day!

Hands-On Minds-On Math! -- Blog #40

Today in my locally developed math class (grade 9 and 10) we had our first monthly auction and it was AWESOME!

Our entire course is based on the life skill of money. Every day the students both earn and spend money, keep tabs of their money and journal about it. Counting money, calculating change and estimating costs have been three skills we have honed this month. We have our own little micro-economy going on!

At the end of each month we have an auction. Most of my items are donated by my twitter follower and for this I sincerely thank a wonderful PLN community.

The money we use is fake but looks like actual Canadian currency and coins. I felt that using monopoly money would not have had the same impact on the learner’s experience. Students earn money by getting to class on time, helping each other, remembering to put up their hands, and during math games we play on the smart board. They also lose money if they are late, misbehave, etc.

Today I had 5 Xbox games sell for prices between $42.00 - $350.00. A student spent $262.00 on a cup of noodles! Students were especially interested in buying items they could give to their mothers or items that would help with their learning, ie. Packages of pencils, ruler with calculator built in, loose leaf!

Even my silent ESL students who I didn’t even know could talk were swept up in the bidding! The Pinoy twins who I thought were mutes got so caught up in the action they started to YELL! The “bad boy” who is on the brink of expulsion spent all of his money on a set of candles to take home to his mom!

One million thanks to our amazing Educational Assistant who makes my life, and that of our students, easier in this class!

Next month I am going to have a videographer in my room to record our auction! Even describing it while I write this blog makes my heart beat faster! This is one of the richest, most authentic learning tasks I have ever shared with my students. I was doubled over with laughter during some of the bidding, it was so intense. I am filled with love and pride at the accomplishments of this class. Just four weeks ago we were working on “How many nickels in a dime!”

If you have any items you wish to donate to future auctions I am happy to receive them.