Instructional Unit

This is a GEOSS activity. Joanne Owen uses GIMP with her students for a project that involves enlarging and painting a monochromatic self-portrait. GIMP is an open source application for editing bit-mapped images. GIMP is available from: http://www.gimp.org

This is a GEOSS activity by Bjorn Berhendt. He used VUE, an open source application for concept mapping, to make a Family tree. VUE is available at, .

BJ wrote these documents in the .odt format, but VTcite would not load them, so they have been uploaded as .doc files. This had to be done in OpenOffice because Word will not open .odt documents. He also has a sample VUE document that could not be uploaded.

These attached documents are GEOSS activities, created to use open source software to teach to mathematics GEs. The activities were initially Logo activities. These were field tested. The activities have been adapted to use Scratch instead of Logo. The Scratch adaptations have not been field tested.

Scratch is available as a free download at the MIT website:

Geometry From Scratch is a classic activity that is normally done using Logo to draw and rotate a square. What's the Point has students use Cartesian Coordinates to draw shapes. Exploring Polygons From Scratch is an adaptation of the Logo program, Poly, that will draw any regular polygon.

If your looking for some lessons and projects for your students, to enhancer their student learning through technology check out some of the lesson plans from Microsoft by subject that cover grades K-12.
Geography
• Giants of the century
• Globalization comes to the table
• Life along the Ring of Fire
• Map reading in the 21st century
• Take a road trip
History
• Archaeological finds
• Current currencies
• History and culture through food
• The Olympics
• What is jazz?
Language arts
• A view from the top
• Bridging the generation gap
• Examining character traits
• Literary scavenger hunt
• Save a species
Mathematics
• Making money from lemons
• Identifying perfect numbers
• Investigating daylight
• Candy is dandy
• Track family water usage
Science and technology
• Acid rain in our state
• How do earthquakes affect buildings?
• Meteorologist for a day
• The Human Genome Project
• The story of milk
Social studies
• Around the world calendar
• Do you know the story of Pomp?
• Pita tortilla baguette
• Tell a totem story
• The life of a bill