Last week I witnessed an amazing connection between science and business in Ms. Bowen's fifth grade classroom at Northside Elementary School. Her students created science fair projects. That's a typical fifth grade assignment, right? Here's the difference...
Ms. Bowen implements the REAL program in her classroom, so her students learn through business ownership in the classroom. One of her students decided to focus on glues used on construction sites. She chose the topic because she is a business owner in the classroom and was curious if the price of items correlated with the quality of items. Her father was an influence on her project because he is a carpenter by trade and uses construction quality glues on a daily basis.
The student chose 5 glues to test, all at different price points. The results were surprising, for sure. The highest priced glue was at the bottom of the list in terms of quality. This science project became somewhat of a "Consumer Reports" experiment. I was very fortunate to meet this student and asked her if she thought her science project would have an effect on the high priced company's reputation if word got out of her results. She and I talked about how science experiments and "Consumer Reports" can prove or disprove society's perception of a project, shifting the reputation of a company for better or for worse.
I love how this awesome student related a classroom science project to the real business world! That's what REAL is all about...creating real world experiences in elementary classroom settings. This student's experience as a business owner made her science fair project relevant and full of purpose for her!
Thank you, Ms. Bowen, for being an amazing educator and creating an authentic REAL world learning environment for your students.
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