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Plotting the Solar System on My Maps

/ apboulton / Leave a comment

capture-solar

This is a fun activity for imparting the vastness of the solar system. Start by placing a football on the centre spot of the school football field or at the front gate etc. and informing your students that it represents the sun. If the circumference of the football is approximately 70 cm and the circumference of the sun is 4.3 million kilometres, how big would each of the planets in our solar system be (I like to provide a selection of everyday objects such as a tennis ball, apple, ping pong ball, and various marbles etc. for comparison) and how far up the road would they be located? Once the calculations have been made (this can be scaffolded by providing a conversion table or similar) ask the students to plot each planet, centered around the football, on Google My Maps.

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Google Forms for Flipped Learning

/ apboulton / 1 Comment

I am a big fan of Google Classroom and although I am not completely paperless quite yet, I am increasingly using Google Docs in class and when setting assignments for homework.

I think one of my greatest discoveries when completing the Google Certified Educator courses (available here and highly recommended) was the fact that you can embed YouTube videos directly into a Google Form then share it with your students as a flipped learning activity. There are a variety of different question types available including text and multiple choice as well as more advanced options such as scales for ordering or sequencing.

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The students’ responses are automatically collated in a Google Sheet document allowing you to add comments, apply conditional formatting or review their learning before the lesson.