Integrating Multiple Subjects into Social Studies

Teaching geography can be done through the integration of other subject areas. The integration allows for students to experience and develop multiple skills at one time. Integration of subjects provides students with a deeper understanding of a concept. This PowerPoint has had me discover relations between teaching geography tools and writing, art, and science. Throughout my exploration, I have looked for ways to integrate several subjects to expand the area and depth of learning among the students.

Incorporating technology enhances the engagement of the students in a lesson. Through the use of a webcam, the students get a first hand look at what the specific location actually looks like rather than imagining it based on a description read to them. Students learn better when information is delivered to them in a familiar and enjoyable setting. I like how the teacher is to visit the same location because you want the students to experience the differences in the weather over time. The students will be excited and look forward to seeing how the location looks when the seasons change. In my classroom, I would explore two places at once that have opposite climates. This would allow the students to see two perspectives on weather in places around the world. Based on what they have learned, I will have short whole class discussions to have the students brainstorm. They will make detailed predictions before the webcam is viewed about what the location is going to look like. The students will have some anticipation going into the viewing on whether they are correct or not. The students are to compare similarities and differences between what they thought and what the location actually looks like. The students will also compare between the two locations visited. I might ask questions such as: What season is it at the first location? Are the two places both warm? Why might the birds be leaving the second location? Viewing climate through technology breaks up the setting of the classroom. The students learn, discover, and connect with different countries they may have never even heard of before through a small tool.

Last semester, I took a science methods course and was given the opportunity to observe science lessons in a fifth grade classroom. During one lesson, the students were learning the different parts of animal and plant cells and how each part works. The teacher had the students take notes on the parts and what their role was as being part of the cell. She discussed each individually as they copied everything down and showed where the parts were located on a diagram of each cell. I thought this lesson was very boring for the students until she pulled up a video and song for them to watch and listen to. The students were exposed to a song that highlighted the different parts, the location of them, and what their job was. I loved that the song was an appropriate age level for the students to understand and that it was catchy for the students to remember. The biggest thing the students would confuse in this lesson was which parts were in both cells versus which parts were only in one cell. The song highlighted this in a lyric so I was certain the students would remember this important piece of information. 

  Science songs can be used for all different types of lessons. A song can be created for weather, energy, electricity, nature, or any other topic. I think teachers should use songs in the classroom to help students remember ideas and have fun with the content they are learning. When a song is played, the students have their full attention on the board. The students can be involved by singing along or maybe drawing the cycle diagram for weather as it is described in the song. For geography, a song can be used to help learn the capitals of different countries or the location of different bodies of water. The students could have a map in front of them on their desk to quickly point out the places as they are mentioned. Songs allow students to learn material faster and with much more enthusiasm.  

Classtools.net is the perfect website to use when looking for templates, diagrams, timelines, timers, the creation of quests and codes and other benefits.

One tool that I will use in my classroom is the QR Treasure Hunt Generator. I have had experience working with this tool with fifth grade students when I taught the American Revolution to them. For my inquiry lesson, this generator was used to create my questions based on the clues given to the students. Technology became a big part of this by having the students work with iPhones to scan the codes that reveal the questions. The students loved the use of iPhones in the classroom. I noticed that, in most groups, the      

students took turns and every student was able to scan one bar code. If I wanted students to solve a problem on their own, I would provide each student with an iPad. The students would be engaged through scanning all the bar codes themselves and having ambition to solve the problem before their classmates Making this more of a treasure hunt, I could place QR barcodes all over the classroom. The students could bring their iPad around and scan the different codes they find. The students would answer questions that lead them to a discovery. Students enjoy walking around the classroom to learn. This allows them to move around instead of sitting in one spot all day. This small incorporation of technology makes students even the slightest bit more interested in solving an investigation.

Another useful classroom tool is "Lights Out!" The idea of it is to select an image, cover the image, and then slowly reveal it to the audience. The students will be very focused when the cover starts to disappear because they want to figure out what the picture is before the whole cover is gone. I will use this in the introduction of my lesson to review what the students have learned from a previous lesson. I feel three to five pictures is enough to cover a range of ideas and to get the students thinking about the topic. I will have the picture gradually appear over ten seconds. When the picture is shown, the students will inform me on what it is an image of. I will have students provide me with as many details as they remember in order to see how much of the information taught was retained. The entire class will give me a thumbs up or thumbs down depending on their agreement with the responses to the pictures. This activity involves both suspense for the students and guidance for the instructor on where to take the lesson.

I recently taught a lesson using current events going on around the world. One article discussed whether sending U.S. guns to Ukraine would be helpful or hurtful.
The second article talked about Pakistan's Malala going to Nigeria to try to have kidnapped girls released.
The last article stated how the United States military is harder to get into every single day. These articles each bring awareness to the students about what the United States as well as what other countries are encountering. The students learned what the five w's are and how important they are to include in an article. This was shown through every one being paired up and discovering the five w's of their article together. Then, the three different groups switched their five w's. The group's had to write the opening paragraph of the article only receiving the five w's. The groups switched back and compared how similar the paragraphs were. The students discovered that these five pieces of information make up an article. Idea number sixty-three is the same type of activity except with an image. The images that I would use would be based on current events going on around the globe. For example, I could include an image on a child who is facing starvation in Africa right now. The students would become knowledgeable on different problems our globe is facing. I find this activity to be useful, as Amy Foster stated, because students understand the importance and can remember this when developing their own writing.

Idea number thirty-three reminds me of when my classmates, Nicole B. and Lindsay, taught their direct instruction lesson to fourth grade students. At the beginning, they had the students watch a video without any sound on the causes of the American Revolution. The students were to look at the images closely and come up with ideas of what the different pictures displayed and how they related to one another. This acted as a pre-assessment to see what the students already knew about the war before the lesson was taught. For idea thirty-three, the students would be watching a PowerPoint or movie of images related to the next topic the students would be learning about. I would add music to the video to focus the students attention at the pictures on the screen. If I used a PowerPoint, I would add animations to the pictures to draw the students eyes to the board as well. Also, the slides need to be displayed for a good amount of time in order for the students to write down their ideas. If the slides are switch every ten seconds, the students do not have enough time to think and write. I love the idea of independently writing a poem instead of having a whole class discussion. This allows for the teacher to see each student's individual ideas on the topic and for each student to be creative in how he or she displays his or her thoughts. As with Nicole B. and Lindsay's, this would be a pre-assessment to gather an understanding on how much the students know before going in-depth with the material. As with idea number nine, this incorporates writing into the lesson. If I were have done this with the fifth graders I taught, this activity matches with the New York State Common Core Standard for Writing. As stated, "Create and present an original poem, narrative, play, art work, or literary critique in response to a particular author or theme studied in class." It is always excellent to integrate two different subjects into the same lesson. I suggest having the students "become a poet" in the classroom.

~ Christine Brown