PDI Studio 5

Once it was determined that the students of public school 2 enjoyed and were engaged with play-doh creations, we started researching the academic subjects that could be tied to the activity for interdisciplinary learning. The obvious subject was biology, but we also looked into the common core and examples of 5th grade syllabuses and curriculums, as biology is typically introduced in middle school. Environmental aspects are something commonly taught throughout the grades in this environmental-positive generation. We did not focus on the green living aspects, but we did want to show natural environments beyond the city of Troy and the capitol region. We created environments for the students to put their aliens through for decision making in terms of their adaptation. While some of the environments were fantasy-based, we had realistic ones that reflected environments that can be observed in the world, such as the underwater exploration.

On the subject of biology, the Alien Adaptation works with creature adaptation and evolution, while also working with non-specific skills like decision making. We worked to add more to the interdisciplinary part of the lesson by adding in vocabulary words relating to science, but also applicable as general words that would help them in the future. There was a lot of reading into current and future curriculums while curating the words we ended up choosing to teach to the students.