Gamification Pickup and Deliver Mechanic

Dr. Boxer decides to create a game board that depicts a cell and pieces for 12 different materials that might be transported into or out of the cell. Students are assigned to teams and given the opportunity to place certain materials either in the cell or in the bloodstream (which surrounds the cell and through which these materials move around the board). He then adds a small role-playing element to the game by giving each team an identity (such as a moving company) and an objective separate...

 Gamification Pattern Building Mechanic

Ms. Forsythe divides her class into four teams (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome). Each team, over the course of the unit, learns about all four artistic cultures but becomes an expert in one. For a 20- to 30-minute exercise in discerning and judging the difference among these artistic cultures, Ms. Forsythe displays a piece of sculpture from each of the four cultures onto a large piece of heavy paper or cardboard and then cuts that image into smaller tiles and tosses all of the pieces to...

 Childhood Fascination with What Adults Consider Mundane

If you know kindergartners, you know that a thread on the carpet can become one of the most fascinating objects on the face of the earth. The child will pick it up and run her fingers the length of it, scrutinizing every centimeter of that thread. She might hold it up in the sunlight to get a better look and then lay it on her lap to continue the intense observation of the thread. Those who are sitting close to the thread scientist may notice this intriguing object and want in. So they’ll ...

 Fishbowl Discussions for Political Dialogue

Working with the Choices Program at Brown University, Zupin and a team of social studies teachers in Indiana found that "fishbowls" are a particularly effective strategy for keeping the peace during a controversial political discussion. A group of five to seven students sit in an inner circle (the fishbowl) deliberating an essential question while the rest of the class observes in a wider circle around them. Then the students switch positions. The format encourages students to "listen to hear...

 The Silos in "Wool"

The silo was something she had always taken for granted. The priests say it had always been here, that it was lovingly created by a caring God, that everything they would ever need had been provided for. Juliette had a hard time with this story. A few years ago, she had been on the first team to drill past 10,000 feet and hit new oil reserves. She had a sense of the size and scope of the world below them. And then she had seen with her own eyes the view of the outside with its phantom-like sh...

 The Origin of Chaos Theory

Lorenz and his team were working to develop a weather forecasting program on an early computer known as a Royal McBee LGP-30.21 They thought they were getting somewhere until the computer started spitting out erratic results. They began with what they thought was exactly the same data and ran what they thought was exactly the same code—but the program would forecast clear skies over Kansas in one run, and a thunderstorm in the next. After spending weeks double-checking their hardware and t...