Travel all over Europe with Syrius
Title: The diary of Syrius’ travels
Educational stage: Primary
Subject: Environmental Science, Foreign Languages, Geography, Maths and Geometry, ICT, Natural Science.
The diary of Syrius’ travels is a project coordinated by teacher Cristina Asensio Soriano from CEIP Les Aigües school in Cataluña, and Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 1 (Poland), which were later joined by other schools.
The main character of this project, Syrius, is the lead to introduce the project to the students. Syrius has travelled all over Europe with his GPS, but by the time his trip has ended he only has the coordinates of the places he has visited and has to ask students from the nine participating countries for help to compile all the information, so students must design and solve a wide range of activities.
Aside from TwinSpace, the project uses a Moodle platform to carry out the work, which has made students become aware of their progress. In addition to this, amongst other ICT tools, students have used: Google Earth to find places and coordinates, Camstudio to record “Syrius' letter”, Photobucket to show photos, JCloze to make real distance and time calculations, JQuiz for speed, route or time, and JMatch to match photos of the same country.
Students have followed this work plan:
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Firstly, they received a postcard from Syrius, sent by another participant.
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Once they had read Syrius' letter, students designed the corresponding stage of the trip, they searched for the coordinates of the important places in their country and they shared information to help their partners with their task.
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A PowerPoint presentation was made for each country.
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They created Maths problems.
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Partners solved the tasks posed.
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Students played “Syrius’ game” and they recorded Syrius' letter in several languages.
All in all, “The diary of Syrius’ travels” approaches the development of contents connected with Maths from an interdisciplinary perspective, including aspects related with Social Science, Natural Science, Foreign Languages and ICT. The main feature is the collaborative work amongst the partners in the project, which has focused on the students' main role in the creation and solution of activities, the teachers' role as mediators and the variety of ICT tools.
Have students been able to help Syrius compile all the information required for his trip? Take a look at the project and check for yourself.
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