Classroom Examples

The diversity in today’s classrooms is enormous. Students represent a wide array of prior experience and knowledge, with a wide spectrum of learning needs and abilities, cultures, and languages.

This is an inquiry into the historical and contemporary relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in Canada, designed by a humanities teacher from Calgary Connect Charter School.

Is it possible to design learning that engages the vast majority of students in mathematics?

Through this project the children gained an understanding of the First Nations People of their area learning the importance of respect and harmony.

In this discipline-based task, students were challenged to think and behave like authors. Using a similar process to what an author would use, these students were tasked with writing a compelling ending to an unfamiliar story.

In this study students looked at the cultural aspects of Big Valley at the height of the railway boom, 1910-20’s and at present day.

Through this inquiry students came to understand the engineering principles that underpin boat design, as well as the scientific concepts associated with buoyancy, including balance, density, displacement, stability, and waterproofing.

In this inquiry, Grade 8 French-Immersion students were charged with becoming medical experts on a particular body system.

Dans cette enquête, les élèves de 8e année en immersion française ont été accusés de devenir des experts médicaux sur un système corporel particulier.

Building understanding of number through the introduction of the number line

A Grade 1/2 class and a Grade 4 class worked together at the Stampede School classroom on an inquiry study into this historical relationship.

Grade 6 students from the small town in Cardston in Southern Alberta, 50 km East of Waterton Lakes National Park, studied if bears and humans might coexist.

Bringing history to life and making it personally relevant for students were essential components of this grade 11 social study’s inquiry.

In this task, students were challenged with designing and building a catapult that could launch a ball a minimum of 5 meters. From the onset, students were expected to behave and think like engineers

Through careful and intentional task design, Grade 8 students were given the opportunity to engage in an authentic approach to Science that closely mirrored the work of a Chemist.

In this Chemistry 20 class, students were given Stoichiometry problems in order to solve collaboratively on the class whiteboards. Through making student learning visible the teacher was able to respond to students’ needs while in the process of learning.

Students and teachers from 3 schools in the Foothills School Division posed problems for each other to solve.

Grade 1 students were tasked with creating a community map identifying and describing important features or landmarks.

Questions de réflexion en regardant l’étude de cas: Comment l’enseignant a-t-il engagé les élèves dans …

Grâce à une conception attentive et intentionnelle des tâches, les élèves du programme d’immersion française …

This is a collaborative project of Statistics Canada and Galileo created to facilitate Canadian’s understanding of the social, economic and cultural forces that shape our nation.

How do grocery stores keep their vegetables fresh looking? This question intrigued and invited students to behave like scientists as they designed and conducted experiments, collected data, and reported on their findings.

After watching a video of a bowl of fruit decomposing, grade 4 students were challenged to design an authentic science experiment that would identify variables that have the greatest impact on the rate of decomposition.

In order to engage students in developing a deep understanding the laws of thermodynamics, these grade 10s were given a challenge of building a thermos that would conserve the energy of hot water.

In this deaf and hard of hearing classroom, establishing communicative competency amongst students was imperative for their success.

The study was designed so that students uncovered relationships between biomes, energy and climate.

In order to demonstrate that science is a part of their everyday world, students were asked to consider and explore how evidence-based science processes can help deepen out understanding of complex issues.

Grade 10 math students were given an interesting problem to solve.

This early learning teacher infused the natural world into her classroom through a series of engaging explorations.

In this Grade 7 Science unit, students were given the opportunity to explore the discipline of engineering.

After completing this project, students understood that financial planning and success is dependent on understanding the mathematics of finance.

The Kindergarten and Grade 1 scientists in Mrs. Boxma’s class are investigating fish. They have generated many questions and are busy searching for answers.

Students became engineers who applied and tested new understandings to their designs and prototypes.

Two grade 3 classes, a grade 2/3 class, and students in grade 6 & 8 worked together on an inquiry study into the culture, the challenges and the future of the cowboy.

This site weaves these strong threads of connection. A web of children, elders, plants, landscape and the stories that bind them together. These stories provide a path for our children to the future.

In this kindergarten task, students were invited to become experts on the alphabet by collaboratively creating a digital storybook.

This collaborative water study of the Bow River Watershed was conducted by students in six different schools across three school jurisdictions.

On the very first day of this teacher’s class, students are engaged in problem solving on whiteboards in small groups.

Using on-line resources from Our Roots, interviews of local residents, scouring attics and basements for hints and clues, students uncovered some good evidence that there was more to the back-lot of their school than anyone suspected.

This project started the teachers talking about what they could study with the students that would help them gain an understanding of the importance of celebrating the past and also, at the same time, looking at the present.

This project is an ethno-ecological inquiry that seeks to digitally preserve traditional Aboriginal knowledge in an interactive online environment.

This study connected 22 teachers and 450 grade 2, 5 and 9 students from 11 schools within Foothills School Division with education mentors from Galileo, archivists from the Okotoks Museum and the Museum of the Highwood.

In this project students learned about life in rural Alberta by interviewing local residents and recording their stories on a website.

Modelling Rick Mercer’s ranting style, grade 9 students were tasked with writing a short persuasive speech, ranging from 45-90 seconds, about a topic of their choosing.

Through using our senses are we able to make our own connections, viewpoints and opinions more important to ourselves and the people we know. As the grade 2 and 3 students explored the past, they made a movie of their findings.

Engaging students in science inquiry and engineering by enabling them to create, invent, and explore with digital technologies.

In our school there are 109 students between five and fifteen years of age. We are the grade nines and we are investigating our rural roots and we will be interviewing our farmers and taking pictures of our farms.

Through problem identification, research, blueprint creation, building, testing, troubleshooting, and tweaking students were tasked with building their own sleds that would travel effectively down a slope.

Grade 9 students at Crossing Park School were challenged to solve an ambiguous linear relations problem.

Over the past several years, “Spoken Word” has become an increasingly popular means of expression.

Using pages from Shaun Tan’s “The Arrival” grade 9 students collaboratively created compelling narratives to accompany the spectacular images in the book.

En utilisant les pages du livre “The Arrival” de Shaun Tan, les éléves ont collaboré afin d’écrire un récit captivant pour accompagner les images du livre.

In this grade 9 math class, students were posed the following question – what is your top speed?

This teacher designed ten labs that highlighted the key concepts of trigonometry.

This inquiry based project looked closely at the history of the community and people of Millarville from the perspective of the land. It was a full year focus for the grade 2 & 3 students.

Grade 7 students from Calgary Science School were invited to re-mix images and designs from historical documents to produce fresh interpretations of the stories that helped to shape Canada’s past and our current national identity.

Every year, Kathy took her Southern Alberta Grade 4 class to the local pond to observe, test and sample the water. Class data was meticulously recorded and saved.

Grade 1/2 children are learning that everyone and everything has a story. All you need to do is ask a question.

Several schools participated in Wild and Free and students were involved in many aspects of this project including interviews, gathering information, discussing and presenting their findings. Students explored the complex issues around wild horses and build knowledge.

In this collaboratively designed task, grade 2 students became experts on the little Brown Bat…

In this grade 6 discipline-based inquiry, students were tasked with taking under-circulated books from the school’s library and completely revamping them in order to encourage more students to choose these books to read.

In this grade 2 task, students were invited to design and write a postcard from a place in and around their community.

Breaking down the barriers of the classroom and inviting outside experts in allowed this group of grade 9 students to develop a deeper understanding of Canada’s youth justice system.