Fifth-grade students at McAuliffe Elementary School used the British passenger liner, RMS Titanic, to immerse themselves in the scientific method. This interdisciplinary project included language arts, mathematics, and science activities. Students had a chance to collaborate and problem-solve through observations and inferences as well as testing their hypotheses and documenting their conclusions from hands-on research.
Principal
Janice
Herritt
said,
"Students
are
making
connections
between
their
readings,
research,
and
what
they
are
learning
in
science.
They
have
been
engaged
and
the
students
are
asking
higher
level
questions."
To
kick
off
the
unit,
students
were
sent
a
ticket
to
sail
on
the
Titanic.
Each
ticket
had
the
name
of
an
actual
person
who
traveled
on
Titanic's
maiden
voyage.
Personal
information
about
each
passenger
and
a
research
paper
were
also
provided.
Activities included students designing and building aluminum foil boats. This allowed them to measure buoyancy and determine how many survivors could be on a lifeboat. A Venn diagram was created to compare the three classes of passengers on the ship. Students also compiled the passengers ages, then calculated the mean, median, mode, and range.
For
a
day,
the
classrooms
and
hallways
transformed
and
mimicked
the
era.
Classrooms
became
the
ship's
dining
rooms
and
passenger
cabins.
Hallways
displayed
large
images
of
the
Titanic
at
sea
and
students
came
dressed
as
the
ship's
ticketed
passengers.