Travels By Land

The Blue Band (8 and 9 year olds) went on a multi-faceted exploration of land transportation and human migration during the By Land arc. Mackenzie, their collaborator, told the story:

Part One: Early Human Migrations, Native Peoples and The Standing Rock Bake Sale

The Blue Banders began the arc by exploring the most basic of by land transportation: Walking! What circumstances and mutations led to humans’ ability to walk? We uncovered some answers in the documentary The Origin of Us by Dr. Alice Roberts and in the copious books we brought back from the library. We learned that walking upright also freed early human hands to create tools. We were visited by three experts who talked about the evolutionary relevance of flint knapping.

The Blue Band did a novel study to accompany our exploration of First Peoples. Sees Behind Trees, by Michael Dorris, is a coming of age story about a nearly blind boy who learns to use his other senses to find his place in the tribe. So much about reading a novel is about empathizing with another person’s experience. To connect with the main character in our story’s experience we’ve been playing games and taking on challenges that put us in our own senses. We also listened to a podcast episode of Invisibilia about a blind man who finds a different way to see and explains how other people’s expectations helped him to get there. The Blue Band also explored Michael Dorris’s use of metaphor by painting pictures and creating their own metaphors.  

To explore Native People in North America the Blue Band looked first to books. Using nonfiction texts they searched for information about how people lived, and then deepened that experience with a trip to the Oakland Museum of California’s Native Peoples exhibit. To understand the role that the California Missions played in Native history the Blue Band compared two different documentaries. One documentary was very sympathetic to the Spanish perspective and the other was sympathetic to the Native perspective. The students discussed bias and used their critical thinking skills to form their own opinions. This line of inquiry culminated in a field trip to the Mission Dolores. The Blue Band also learned about the plants that were important to Native Peoples in a trip to the SF Botanical Garden’s Native Plant section.

The project that came out of this study of native peoples was inspired by articles we read about the Standing Rock Sioux’s protest of the Oil Pipeline. The group saw parallels between what happened to the native people in California and brainstormed ways to help the protesters. They decided to throw a bake sale to raise money for the kids who were there protesting. In order to get a loan from the administration to buy bake sale ingredients, the Blue Band delivered a presentation about why this issue was important to them and created a budget.  

Throughout the first months of the arc the Blue Band math time was focused on place value and money math. They practiced counting money by playing games and building a general store, adding together decimals to build a budget and subtracting decimals to make change. The students were able to apply these skills that they had been building when they visited safeway to create a budget then actually purchase ingredients. The group worked together to author a letter to the school, follow recipes and create signage. On the day of the bake sale they put their money counting skills to task as they handled a huge volume of customers!

Part Two: The Transcontinental Railroad and Sail Propelled Rail Car

The Blue Band’s Sail Propelled Rail Car was inspired by our exploration of the transcontinental railroad.  We watched documentaries and read stories about the importance of the invention of the steam engine and the historical significance of the transcontinental railroad. As a part of this exploration the Blue Band went to the California Railway Museum in Sacramento. Getting to be up close and personal with such huge machines was an incredible experience.    

In the process of building the rail car the Blue Band ran into a couple of problems that called for a deeper dive into physics. Building self steering wheels was really challenging. One of the designs involved using wood as a guide for the wheels. This led to an exploration into physics guided by a Bill Nye episode on friction. The designers decided that they would need to use wheels for the guides to reduce friction. Another wheel design included flanges on the wheels.  We did an exploration into what shape wheel would be best for turning. The students experimented with cups and tubes before discovering the best shape wheel for turning on tracks. We then watched a documentary short explaining the phenomenon.  

The last physics problem we encountered was what shaped sail would work best for our vehicle. The Blue Banders made their hypotheses and created model sail cars to test different sails. They discovered that a triangular sail was the best shape and then watched a KQED documentary short on the physics of sailing. 

Throughout our study of the railroad the Blue Band deepened their concept of place value by working in alternative bases. They practiced counting in bases 2-10 in word problem situations that related to the railroad history we had been studying.

The majority of this project was spent in the shop learning to use tools such as the bandsaw, chopsaw, drills, clamps and measuring tools. The students had to practice measurement and precision in order to create a vehicle that could be compatible with standard gauge rail. They drew upon their spatial reasoning to bring an idea on paper into three dimensional space. They had to collaborate as a team, meet setbacks with resilience and persevered through both boredom and challenge.  

The day of the sail brought the Blue Band to an eleven-mile track of abandoned railroad track in Davenport, California. They started out early with their lunches, layers, and ther two railcars. After making some last adjustments to the wheels, hoisting the sail, and checking the wind, they rode down the track on a modern-day land adventure. Their dreams of smooth sailing were only hindered by the fact that the railcars broke down every couple of yards on their journey, and the kids had to use their plucky resourcefulness, duct tape, and drills to make the repairs needed to keep going. Exhausted, they returned to school late but thrilled that they had accomplished this together.