Year 8 enjoy Time Line Project Based Learning Day

December 6th 2007

On the morning of December 6th 2007, Year 8 at St Michael’s took part in a “Mystery Suitcase” Project-Based Learning class with Professor Phil Whitfield and Dr Ann Bartlett from King’s College, University of London.  They were ably assisted by Marilyn Ross (Assistant Principal), Rev. Liz Oglesby, and Rev. Steve and several other members of staff.  The entire Year 8 was divided into 2 groups and each group had a 2 hour lesson.

Year 8 learning about big numbers – how many noughts in a billion?

Opening the mystery suitcase began an exploration of the history of the Universe.  The class found that this history began with the Big Bang, nearly 14 billion (14,000,000,000) years ago.  They were able to visualise numbers this big by using a Time Line (made of multicoloured wool) on which 1cm represented 1 million years.  The line had to be 137 metres long to stand for the whole of that history on that scale! 

Members of the class helped to unravel the large ball of wool.  Its beginning, which stood for the Big Bang, was marked by the popping of several large, silver balloons.  At the right intervals along the line there were labels marking what happened at that point in the past.  So, the class learned when the Sun and Earth formed, when life began on Earth and the later development of all of the plant and animal species that have covered the planet.  Right at the other end of the line they found out about the origins of humans and realised what a tiny amount of the 13.7 billion years has been taken up by human history.

The class discovered that recent scientific evidence suggests all modern humans began in Africa about 160,000 years ago and they eventually migrated round the whole world.

Once the Time Line was rewound the class watched a Power Point presentation of pictures of the events and creatures that had been talked about along the Time Line.  During a lively discussion about the history of the Universe, everybody was involved in thinking about scientific and religious ways of looking at history.  Most (but not all!) agreed that there was no problem about reconciling these two perspectives of our history. 

The class unravels the Time Line.

The session finished with all members of the class carrying out a Multiple Choice Questionnaire about the lesson.  These were marked by Dr Bartlett and Prof Whitfield, who were impressed with the standard of the answers.  The following pupils did particularly well:

Tamara Brown
Tony Ito                      

 …….Who were joint first

Charlie Jennings
Flavio Reis
Ivy Kotey
Emesha Rose
Abdullah

..……Who were equal second

It was clear from the questions they asked, that many of the pupils found that this was a stimulating and interesting project – it certainly gave them food for thought!