Podcasts

The podcast I found was titled How Garbage-Powered Cars Could Work.  http://www.howstuffworks.com/podcasts/stuff-you-should-know.rss

This podcast based its statistics on the amount of garbage in landfills from the United States but the rest of their ideas are still relevant for how I would use it in the classroom.  I decided to start listening to it because the title grabbed my attention right away.  I find it interesting to think of how things are going to be in the future and all of the new innovations we are working to create.  I think that students would also have fun speculating about all the cool things we will be able to do in the future.  As I got listening it really got me thinking about what I could do with my students and how it integrates both science and social studies.

I would use it for a social studies lesson examining different regions or countries of the world with the amount of waste they produce and combine this with a map of developed and un-developed countries.  Because this podcast is based in the United States, I would encourage my students to find Canadian statistics on how much waste we bring to the landfill.  I would have my students come up with ways to reduce the amount of garbage we have in Canada that include what they could do as individuals and what the community as a larger population could do.  The final element would be to have the students come up with other positive things we could use our garbage for.  I would probably have my students do this in small groups.  This also fits in with science outcomes dealing with the environment and pollution.  Each group would share their information in the form of a podcast which reinforces the notion that we need to encourage students to be creators of information, not just consumers.

This is the first time I have ever looked at podcasts before and I was amazed with the variety of different topics that people talk about.  I originally was just looking at a few to complete my tech task but I ended up listening for much longer than I anticipated becuase I found them so interesting!

~ Carissa