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Water Pollution in Brazil and California: A Collaborative, Interdisciplinary StudyMajor Goal and Short Description:
High school students at E.E.P.S.G. Dona Idalina Macedo Costa Sodre in Sao Caetano do Sul, Sao Paulo, Brazil and third through sixth grade gifted and talented education (G.A.T.E.) students at Edenvale Elementary School in the Oak Grove School District in San Jose, California, U..S.A. will study ecological concerns related to water pollution in order to bring about a cultural and political understanding between the Brazilian and American students involved in this project. We will seek real solutions for the ecological problems facing the world.Objectives:
Brazilian and American students will share an interdisciplinary,multicultural understanding of the problems of water pollution that combines art, biology, physics, chemistry, geography, history and religion with multimedia computer technology and collaborative learning.In order for the Brazilian and American students to develop a global vision about the ecological problems prevalent in different cultures using Internet based technologies , the students will research the effects of economic, political, cultural and ecological issues that effect water pollution in both of our countries.
Teachers at both schools will investigate and divulge new learning methods and subjects that involve multi-cultural education and the new technologies including educational software and hardware via Internet to other public schools. Working collaboratively, the teachers will work to decrease the technological and cultural distance between the developed country and the developing country.
Project's Activities
This cooperative project will allow students to:
Do practical field work,collect materials, observe , and take photos
Search, analyze and interpret books, scientific documents, papers, newspapers, maps, graphs, photos, Internet, CD-ROM, speciality magazines, movies, and art work with different languages as multimedia and performance.The two groups will get acquainted during the fall of 1997. They will share photographs, and text files via email sharing personal histories, events that are involved with water that they have been involved with, poetry, video and multimedia exchanges.
Brazilian and American students will begin collaboration on the the actual project in March 1998. The American students will end their school year in June, 1998. Consequently they will complete the major portion of their collaboration by then. The American teacher willcontinue the collaboration during the summer with any students who can remained involved. In Sept. 1998 when the American students return to school, they will finish the sharing and posting of results.
This project involves a multidisciplinary, multicultural, multimedia collaboration between schools in two different countries who are collaboratively developing new learning and teaching methods through the integration of the Internetinto the educational environment as way to solve social and ecological problems.
We will divide the project in following steps:
Phase I. Self- introduction session for students and planning the mutual project between teachers the both countries via Internet.
Phase II. Discovery of the ecological problem of water pollution through factual research, personal histories and impressions that involved water.
Phase III. Selection of the principal projects and determining how to integrate these with each curriculum knowledge area ( planning session).
Phase IV. Developing of the project ( work session)
Phase V. Evaluation.
This ongoing step will also be present in phases II and IV.The teachers will identify the students' knowledge about water through their artistic and multimedia production, research, commentaries, questionnaires, and dialogues with experts.The scientific concepts and the artistic and critical attitudes will be evaluated in a variety of ways. In these different steps the work will be compared and evaluate by the teachers and students of the two countries. Our students will create their own evaluation systems with their teachers. At the beginning of the project students and teachers will determine the criteria against which their research and projects will be compared. Student work will be evaluated by the extent that they have met the criteria.
Project SiteEdenvale School (San Jose, CA. U.S.A. )
Linda UllahE.E.P.S.G. Dona Idalina Macedo Costa Sodrel (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
Eduardo Ruiz Maldonado, Tania Callegaro, Eliana Fredo