How We Organize Ourselves - Systems

Systems - Setting up our classroom "system"

Our first unit of inquiry in fourth grade is under the transdisciplinary theme, "How We Organize Ourselves" and has a focus on systems.   The central idea of the unit is:  People create systems to support human endeavor and enterprise. Some questions we will focus on are:  

• What is a system?  
• What makes something a system?  
• Why do we need systems?  
• How do systems connect?

An obvious connection with this unit is setting up our classroom system.  What jobs does our classroom need?  What are some systems we should have in place to have an organized, well-functioning, and safe classroom?  So one of the first activities students did was to create their Essential Agreements for the classroom.  We also figured out systems for things like collecting homework, taking our spelling tests, and our Independent Reading and record keeping.

We had some exciting presentations:  Mr. Sean Fuller, who works at NASA spoke to us about all the systems in place to keep the International Space System running.  Some of my students took the challenge to map out some of the systems they heard in his presentation.  Mr. John Bishop talked to us about all the systems that keep our AAS Library running smoothly, such as the Dewey Decimal System.  And Ms. Rita Ehrman spoke to us about all the systems involved in setting up a large school function like the AAS Fun Run.  And students made appointments and met with various heads of divisions around the school to find out how their system interacts with other systems.

We wrapped up the unit with students demonstrating their understanding of systems and how they connect by creating projects--one group created a Systems City, another created a Home System, and another created a School System.  I was impressed with my students' creativity and understanding of systems!