The Flinnt Blog : Ideas for Users

Ebola to the rescue of 6th Graders

December 31, 2014
/Riddhi Agrawal
/User Insights
/No Comments

As a science teacher I am personally convinced that science is what makes the world go around and that everybody should be interested in science. It may be the science of what makes the sunflower always looks towards the sun or the science behind keeping the danger sign red. So it comes as a surprise when I see children disinterested in learning science.

The topic on micro organism is something that doesn’t interest children much because they can’t see them, the shift from large observable things to small micro organisms takes away the interest of the learners. This time in October when I was planning to start the unit on micro organisms the Ebola story was a rage and the newspapers were full of stories on Ebola.

Usually these bright ideas come to us when we are reading newspapers, the pain of photocopying and then physically distributing the sheets out in the class makes most plans stay on paper. The introduction of Flinnt has meant that I don’t have to go through this process. As soon as I see an article I immediately google it, copy the link and schedule a post. I sent the link to my learners, it caught their attention and they started discussing what was Ebola and how it was spreading.

By the time the learners had come to class they had already researched a lot and they were absolutely primed to learn more. The reaction was a validation of my thought that as long as learners can relate what they are learning with what is happening around them, they will be interested.