Week 2 - Science Through Drama and Dance

In week 2, we looked to build off the integrative strategies learned in week 1 and strengthen our teaching of science through drama and dance.

We explored the Grade 4 curriculums this week, looking at plants and animals in science.

Science
3.3 identify factors (e.g., availability of water or food, amount of light, type of weather) that affect the ability of plants and animals to survive in a specific habitat

Drama
B1.4 communicate thoughts, feelings, and ideas to a specific audience, using audio, visual, and/or technological aids to enhance their drama work (e.g., use dimmed lights, black lights, and music to suggest a mood; project images with an overhead/data projector; use a microphone to enhance or create sound effects or amplify

We started by talking about natural phenomena and playing a disaster zone game - all related to the grade 4 curriculum. We also did a really cool soundscape in which we recreated various natural disasters using our voices and body parts. The group that presented this week chose to explore science principles from a higher grade and this was really interesting. 

My favourite activity from this group was called machine. 

Machine

Machine is a group activity where each group member represents a particular part of a machine and does an action to make it work as a whole. To create a machine students use simple movements and sound to represent the elements in a larger system or body.

As you can see in the video above, we used this technique to demonstrate the inner workings of a cell. Each person is representing a part of a cell, such as the nucleus or the ribosomes. They must complete their actions together to create a machine that works. Cool!

Elements of Choral Work 

Activities such as machine or soundscape require students to focus on the dramatic elements of choral work and voice. When we think about using our voices, there are so many ways we can manipulate them, either independently or as a group. We can change:

• Number of Voices - solo, duet, unison
• Tempo (duration) - fast, moderate, slow
• Dynamics (volume) - soft, moderate, loud
• Rhythm - varying the time of silences
• Rhyme - similar, slant, dissimilar

In the machine activity, we definitely had a large number of voices, dissimilar words, and kept the same medium tempo. However, some students chose to vary their dynamics depending on their importance within the cell - for example, one might argue the mitochondria (muscle of the cell) might make the loudest noise! 

Reflection

I love teaching science and actually used drama elements in my placement to help solidify students' understanding of the rock cycle. In week 3 my presentation will be about the rock cycle and will highlight these techniques. I think machine would also work well in this instance because students would have to show how a rock changes over time in a cyclical manner! Students learn best when they are doing the actions because they need to understand the principles behind them first. If you also ask these students to use the drama/dance strategies to teach others, the understanding becomes even stronger. As a potential science teacher I will take away strong elements from these two classes to apply in my practice.