Throughout Berkeley County School District, our teachers conduct lessons that make a difference. Recently, all of Westview Middle's seventh grade students got to experience first-hand a topic they've been researching extensively this year: drones.
Who: All seventh grade ELA teachers - Lee Ann Coleman, Louis Pfeiffer, Kristine Neese - and their students
Where: Westview Middle
What: For their research unit, WVM's ELA teachers wanted to give their students a topic that was interesting, relevant and timely for them to learn about: drones. Students gathered information from a variety of sources to develop thesis statements and outlines about the positive and negative effects of drones in society. Additionally, from their research, they created infographics explaining the use of drones in construction, agriculture, the military and more.
To understand drones in further detail, BCSD Office of Technology's Innovative Learning Coordinators visited Westview Middle for three days with battery-operated drones in tow. Students were split into small groups and challenged by the ILCs to program their drone for a specific flight pattern to gain points on an obstacle course. Students then flew the obstacle course, performed some trial-and-error on their coding scripts, and observed their adjustments in real time.
Results: Through this lesson, students were able to grasp a greater understanding of what it's like to pilot and operate a drone . Furthermore, it provided an engaging hands-on experience that built on what the students had already researched.
