Month: April 2013

In discussing our units in the lens of the four science disciplines (Earth/Chemistry/Physics/Biology) we made several changes to our units.

1) We were concerned of when the Human Sexuality and Reproduction unit is taught. We currently teach puberty in grade 5 and everything else in Grade 8. We changed it by adding a more extensive Human Body unit in Grade 6 and keeping more of the Human Sexuality aspects in Grade 8.

2) Stewardship of the Earth should be a focus on every year. We went through the Reduce/Recycle/Reuse and global warming/climate change focus for each grade level.

3) We also made some specific unit moves, like moving general ecology unit from grade 7 to grade 10 as an addition to the cellular respiration and photosynthesis unit. Simple machines are covered in Grade 4 so do not have to be done in Grade 6. We swapped Electricity/Magnetism in grade 9 with Evolution in Grade 8. We take alternative energy out of Grade 9 and into Grade 10.

In the PYP we added Electricity and Fire Safety and Waste Management to Grade 4. To help understand Rube Goldberg Machine unit, we added magnets, nanotechnology, and work. We moved Newton’s Laws from Grade 6 and put into Grade 5, taking out Light and Sound and the Scientific Method. We also added “Then and Now” to Grade 1 and made three science units for the new PK-3 class.

After we completed re-arranging the units we put forth a plan for 2013-2014. The three priorities will be to look at the skills of science and when and to what extent they are taught at each grade level and comparing our Curriculum Overview Map with the National Science Digital Library (NSDL)  science literacy maps. This will get us some conceptual balance. Finally, are the PYP Science Strands and the MYP Concepts enough substance for our curriculum or do we need another curriculum tool.

This weekend I had the pleasure of participating in a workshop entitled “Civics 101” with our students. The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International School of Belgrade (ISB) are partners in delivering workshops this spring. NDI was founded in 1983 by the United States Democratic Party as a non-governmental, non-profit organizations whose mission is to spread and support democratic principles throughout the world. NDI is closely working with the Serbian government during its process toward possible European Union membership. NDI targets impoverished areas in Eastern Serbia and so this year our students are working with students from Kladovo High School. Kladovo is a small city located on the Danube River, about 4 hours north east of Serbia.

The goal of the workshops is for the students to learn leadership and advocacy skills and jointly execute projects in the communities of the two schools. This weekend’s workshop was held in Kovačica, a city in the south Banat region about 30 minutes outside of Belgrade.

I would like to thank the NDI workshop leaders and our staff members who participated in the workshops!