This is a post I've been itching to write because of the successful lesson I had doing this last year. The grade 6 central idea focused on 'Understanding of scientific knowledge is constantly evolving and has an impact on people’s lives' and our PE unit was swimming.
Students had been swimming in their swimming suits with their goggles and caps, as well as having the opportunity to use different types of swimming aids. For students to understand how swimming has evolved due to the understanding of scientific knowledge, I asked the students to swim fully clothed (non swimming suit). They did not know why at the time but they started getting the idea as the lesson went on. For some reason that lesson, I had quite a few students who were not participating, so I asked them to create 5-6 interview questions about their classmates experience in the pool. This way, none participants could also understand the experience through their friend's responses.
During the lesson, students were commenting on how difficult it was to swim and how tired they were becoming. I stood there with a rise smile on my face, rubbing my hands as the plan was working perfectly. They continued to cover the content of the lesson, but I cut the lesson shorter than usual, so we could have a class discussion.
I asked the question, how has scientific knowledge helped evolve swimming? and bam, all the students had their hands up and were sharing their answers by backing it up with their experience in the pool. As a group, we categorised the changes in swimming to several key areas (venue, safety, clothing, equipment and coaching), which led them to research further (homework task) by looking at the difference in swimming before and after scientific knowledge and how it has had an impact. We also discussed about swimming performance and how that has evolved because of scientific knowledge, but I also made reference to the type of swimming suits, as that caused some controversy in the sport itself.
Below are some examples of student's work that was produced from the lesson. So proud of them :)
