Antartica

This article is a great example of hands on learning in the classroom. It also teaches children how they can learn outside the classroom, even all the way across the country. Anarctica became an interest for teachers in the classroom when an insect called Belgica antartica, a wingless midge found only in Antarctica.
This insect is also fascinating because Belgica can also survive the winters in Antarctica by freezing itself nearly solid or by reisisitng freezing by losing more than forty percent of its body water. Miami University conducts Antarctica expeditions that usually include a k-12 teacher who researches and brings the information back home to the classroom. Before the researcher traveled to Antarctica the school would conduct numerous assemblies where the students were given opportunitites to ask questions and give there input into what they would like to see be brought back from Antarctica.
I bleived this article is very informative for any teacher. It talks about different techniques on how to teach your students information and emphasizes the importance of interaction between the student and the task at hand. The article gives examples of art projects to go along with the science topic of Antarctica and puts them in grade appropriate categories. A blog was also made for the students to correspond with the educator that actually went and visited Antarctica. I thought this was a great idea and can be used to even interact with another school in Antarctica to exchange the different lifestyles. The article also gives great ideas on how to continue the education and different ways to teach and learn.
Lastly, I agree with the article and how it showed the close interaction with student and teacher. It also gave tips on how to include parents on their childs education, which I think is so important and there is a lack of.