Like Newton’s scientific genius, which is accessible to a multiplicity of ages and learners, the Newton’s Castle web resource offers a wide range of differentiated multidisciplinary curricular projects and research chambers within its pages.
EARLY CHILDHOOD
Art Of Lenguage
A child in grade 2 or 3 can experience an online think aloud and read aloud using the Balanced Literacy animation/picture walk technique as the child considers how and why light refracts through a prism.
Other language arts uses for the prism and why the dogs chase the cars problem construction would be: have children create their own deliberately fictional folktale to explain this scientific fact and then include an informative paragraph with the facts! scientific fact data on it!
They can also use the questions to create a scientifically accurate answer in the style of John Sciezka’s wonderful Scientific Verse (New York: Viking, 2004).
Science/Mathematical Reasoning/Problem Solving
Since color identification and discussion is part of the early childhood science curriculum, children can use this animation, as well as the car going up a hill animation, as a catalyst for science log picture observations. . These questions can also serve as a foundation for instilling the scientific method and hypothesis formation in young students.
The same child can only reflect on the scientific explanation. The child can hypothesize why the dog is chasing a car. Thus, the child has practiced inquiry-based learning assisted by early childhood learning technology. Animation and the web have given the young learner access to this great Newtonian idea.
MIDDLE SCHOOL MIDDLE ELEMENTARY LEVEL
ART OF LENGUAGE
At the middle grade level, children can develop their own ideas and stories or factual explanations for why cars go up a hill. They can also create storyboard animations using the visual as a catalyst for a persuasive narrative or procedural narrative or investigative writing.
They can develop more science puzzles and answer them in puzzle format.
You can also use these questions and the other Newton Questions page on the web resource as a starting point for describing the procedure and/or describing the steps you would take in the preliminary investigation process to discover the answers to these questions. They could even detail what happens when they put these questions into a search engine and then start checking for matches. Of course, they can also click on the links on the site to explore the actual sources of the information.
They can also write to some of the other experts quoted online, creating authentic communications and practicing much-needed email/business skills.
Middle school students can add their own links with explanations on how these links enrich specific pages.
SOCIAL STUDIES/ SOPHISTICATION TEST/ INTEGRATED BALANCED LITERACY
At the middle grade levels, the web resource can provide information for biographical snapshots or biographical writings of Newton students. They can also rewrite their story for high school students, since the target audience of web resources is high school students.
High school students can map Newton’s life to go along with his timeline.
Intermediate students can check out a teen trade book on Newton to improve the site!
You can use the timeline, animations, graphics, and photos on the site for DBQ document question links.
SCIENCES
They themselves can have fun connecting the rich genius of Newton with the content/syllabus of Science and Mathematics, they have already studied or will study. They can even create a page of such connections with the header: Newton KNEW IT ALL!
Intermediate students can design web pages that focus on current topics or stories in science and/or math that resonate with Newton’s understandings.
They can also digitally photograph natural phenomena from everyday life that reflect Newton’s understanding and insights.
SCIENCE/MATHEMATICS/LANGUAGE ARTS
Newton’s inventions page can be the starting point for high school students to create their own inventions inspired by yours or explore current permutations of how their inventions live in our current time.
They can relate the information about Pennsylvania mountains to their Earth Science curriculum and investigate other magnetic mountains. They can also develop a list of links for these mountains.
Intermediate Students can survey the need for an invention, preliminary drawings and precise details of the need, scientific/mathematical design principles behind it, and market design for their inventions. They may be Newton’s 21st century invention apprentices.
HIGH SCHOOL
The site was developed for, by, and with high school students at John F. Kennedy High School.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS/ TESTING SOPHISTICATION/ REGENTS/ SAT ESSAY WRITING/ DEBATE/ STUDIES/
Of course, for this grade level, PowerPoint can be the powerful catalyst to revisit Newton’s achievements and align Newton with contemporary issues of intellectual freedom.
High school students can partake of his castle of critical thinking, research, and hypothesis formation while reacting to the same issues of censorship and intellectual freedom of publication that claimed his life.
They can develop their own persuasive essay for and against some of the issues and issues that he championed.
Of course, you can also investigate how these topics have changed and to what extent they appear in today’s news.
They can develop layouts for their own pages to amplify these issues.
They can also develop English Regents exam sophistication model questions in multiple
choice, DBQ and essay format for the exam and of course also provides the answers.
MATH:
You can explore the extent to which Newton’s math ideas are part of your current curriculum or have fun having him comment on your current math textbooks!
They can research to identify other mathematicians who were doing research at the same time as Newton and compare their results with his.
SCIENCES:
They can develop sample pages from Newton’s ongoing data maintenance in which they hypothesize, using their writing and ideas, how they would have written or completed a current laboratory observation journal or laboratory procedure form.
WORLD HISTORY:
Students can design a timeline that focuses on other great multidisciplinary thinkers in science, math, and politics, such as Da Vinci and Einstein, and relate Newton’s achievements to their own using graphic organizers in a power point.
A scientist and writer of all ages, in cyberspace for all to visit and review!
Newton’s Castle is open for exploration and for “apple” ications 2-12! http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC051308/index.htm