INTERDISCIPLINARY TEACHING AND LEARNING

A topic I commonly teach is Frisbee. I love the this sport! It allows me to be creative and come up with all sorts of different ways to teach the fundamentals of Frisbee. I am excited to add to this topic by incorporating other resources from other subjects to help further student’s knowledge of this sport.

	The two subjects I would like to incorporate into FRISBEE are SCIENCE and HISTORY!!!

Science: I would like to look at such aspects of aerodynamics and trajectory that goes into throwing a Frisbee.

A resource that I found to help incorporate these science factors into the game of Frisbee is this wonderful website called Science Buddies.

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/sciencefairprojects/project_ideas/Aero_p010.shtml

Here is an example of the diagrams that this website provides. It think this is a great way for students to understands the science aspect behind throwing a Frisbee.

This diagram shows the forces on a frisbee in flight.The arrow v shows the direction of flight. The downward arrow is the weight of the frisbee (mass times gravity). The backward arrow, d is the force of drag. The upward arrow, L, is the force of lift. It acts perpendicular to the direction of flight. Both lift and drag change as a function of the tilt angle, α, of the disk. (Hubbard and Hummel, 2000)

 The website also provides diagrams that will allow students to see a launch angle and place a scientific equation to the tilt and destination of the frisbee based on how it is thrown or launched.

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I would implement this in class by having students look at the equations on force and explain how it directs how the frisbee will travel. I could make a chart for students to figure out an equation that they will think will provide the most accurate results and then they can test it out for themselves by throwing the frisbee at a specific target I will set up for them. They can make a hypothesis, complete the experiment and come up with a conclusion on what works best when throwing the frisbee. This would also incorporate the scientific process.

         

 History: I would like to look at the history of the sport.

The resource I found useful and easy to read was the Frisbee Timeline. This website presents a time line of events that occurred in the foundation of Frisbee.

http://www.discsandmore.com/frisbee-timeline

I would either implement this as a project. Students would need to complete research on the history of the sport and create their own timeline including visuals. I might also just explain the history of frisbee at the very beginning of the unit. I think it would be valuable for students to know the history of an activity they are completing.

CHALLENGES AND VALUES OF INTERDISCIPLINARY TEACHING AND LEARNING:

There are many values of interdisciplinary teaching and learning. As humans it is important to be well rounded individuals. One way to do that is to learn as much as we can, interdisciplinary teaching and learning provides teachers and students with that ability. I think nothing but value can occur when looking at all aspects of different subject matter on something you are learning. For example, as you can see above I chose to combined history, PE, and science this will provide my students with background knowledge through history which will help them understand the rules and foundation of the sport and in looking at the science of throwing the frisbee my students will conduct a scientific experiment to see what the best way to throw a frisbee accurately. Both of these subjects providing knowledge to help students in being more successful in playing the game of frisbee. This will also provide the student with knowledge that will allow them to explore different aspects of the subject frisbee. Interdisciplinary teaching and learning could provide students with more connections to what they are learning and keep them interested in what they are supposed to be learning. This would be true of any time you incorporate interdisciplinary learning. Over all, it would keep students interested and create more well rounded knowledgable people. Although there are challenges to interdisciplinary teaching as well. It might be hard to try and connect every learning objective to another subject. Funding would also arise as a challenge, incorporating all subjects in learning could become very costly and not to mention time consuming. I know that there is little time to complete interdisciplinary teaching in our already packed curriculum but if we have an opportunity to incorporate interdisciplinary learning and teaching it would be so beneficial to the learning process.

PE Blog I responded to:
Jenn Arnold