Nichols GT Scoop

"Giftedness is not what you do or how hard you work. It is who you are. You think differently. You experience life intensely. You care about injustice. You seek meaning. You appreciate and strive for the exquisite. You are painfully sensitive. You are extremely complex. You cherish integrity. Your truth-telling has gotten you in trouble. Should 98% of the population find you odd, seek the company of those who love you just the way you are. You are not broken. You do not need to be fixed. You are utterly fascinating."

- Dr. Linda Silverman

This semester, our 5th and 6th grade GT students built upon their critical thinking and public speaking skills, and learned about entrepreneurship and economics through our Shark Tank unit. They created an invention or innovation and wrote a business proposal as if they were planning to pitch their idea to the entrepreneurs on the TV show, Shark Tank!

Students worked in collaborative teams (some worked individually) to:

* Brainstorm an invention or innovation

* Construct a prototype of their invention or innovation

* Generate an advertisement for their invention or innovation

* Enter the "Shark Tank" to pitch their invention or innovation

Their resulting inventions and innovations will be featured in our upcoming Showcase newsletter.

The students created a prototype, or an actual first model of their invention/innovation. The prototype did not have to work – its purpose was to serve as a visual of their product/idea.

The students worked together in teams to solve several challenges. All teams received an equal box of materials with a limited amount of time to complete each task. Each challenge varied in difficulty based on the limited materials, time limits, and ingenuity of thinking outside the box. The students generated multiple solutions to challenges based on the criteria and constraints of the problem while learning how to work effectively as a team.

For this collaborative engineering task the students needed to develop a way to move two corks and two marbles from behind the starting line, over the river (the yellow tent), and through the woods (the cups) so that they ended up inside grandmother's house (the box). The students stated that this was the most challenging of all of the collaborative engineering tasks.

For the You Call This Art! Fast Collaborative Engineering task, students created one or more art pieces and prepared a presentation showing their art pieces.

For this collaborative engineering task, the students created a catapult device utilizing a mouse trap and other supplies that launched a peep. We then measured the distance and height their catapults launched their peeps!

For the Birthday Party Fast Collaborative Engineering task, students created the perfect birthday gift and presented what it was and how it was used.

For this collaborative engineering task the students created a parachute that helped land an egg safely on a target.

Please visit my website by clicking the button below. You will find a variety of links and resources as well as a class blog, more pictures, and much, much more!

Nichols GT Specialist

Email: april.cagl@jisd.org
Website: www.mrscaglesgtclass.com
Location: 818 SW Loop 456, Jacksonville, TX 75766
Phone: 903-541-0213