Eiffel Tower model, Montreal, March 2009.I am volunteering to help out at a free SF workshop for teachers. I have designed a unit teachers can adapt for their classes in grades 7-10. I teach a grade 8 gifted class, so I am used to customizing the activities and reading materials to different levels. My unit is a mix and match affair around themes of teen identity, societal power, civil liberties, corporate and government interests, high tech for good and evil etc. Instructors can choose books and activities according to their needs. Most of the other presenters are published SF authors but there are also librarians and teachers. I figure I’m going to learn a lot from them.
Julie E. Czerneda, the keynote speaker, suggested that I help out when I ran into her at Ad Astra. I’ve since read one of her books and one of her anthologies and I was very impressed. I'm looking forward to her opening address on using SF to teach science.
AboutSF's Teaching Speculative Fiction: A Portable Workshop
Anticipation, the 67th World Science Fiction Convention, Montréal, Québec
Thursday, August 6, 2009 at Worldcon - at the Palais des congrès de Montréal
Two Tracks of Programming - Presentations in English and French Running Concurrently
Schedule of English-Language Events (Francophone track listed below)
9:00 – 10:00 - Empower Your Students: Teach Them Science Fiction, Too – Keynote
Award-winning science fiction author and science educator, Julie E. Czerneda, begins the educator program with a frank discussion of how the creativity and reasoned speculation of science fiction are essential tools for scientific literacy and full citizenship in the future your students will inherit.
10:00 – 12:00 Science Fiction and Scientific Literacy – mini workshop
Assess scientific literacy (yours and your students) and learn how to put science fiction to work in your science classroom to develop key components in this hands-on workshop with Donna Young, Lead Educator for the NASA Chandra X-Ray Center EPO Office, and award-winning SF and astronomical illustrator, Jean-Pierre Normand. Materials for classroom use will be provided.
½ hour break to pick up lunch
• Les Jardins food court (level 7), with its variety of fast food selections (deli, salad bar, pizza, prepared dishes), offers fast and efficient service at affordable prices. An adjacent outdoor terrace is open during the summer.
12:30 – 13:30 Brown bag lunch
Join Julie Czerneda for a romp through SF films as she shows examples of “Science, Scientists, and Other Bizarre Notions.” Warning: there will be laughter as well as some surprises.
13:30 – 14:00 – Introducing AboutSF – Presentation
AboutSF provides the foundation for the Anticipation workshop. A special DVD/CD with over a hundred files goes home with workshop members as a resource. David-Glenn Anderson is the tour guide.
14:00 – 16:00 – Stretching the mind while thinking outside the box – mini workshops/presentations
Cathy Palmer-Lister, Lynn E Cohen-Koehler, Lindalee Stuckey, Maaja Wentz, Sharon Rawlins, Eric Choi, and Susan Fichtelberg explore reading, writing and everything else within a classroom. A question may be asked: You have read H. G. Wells Invisible Man. Would you like to be invisible? Why? Why not? A smorgasbord of books, movies, arts, social science and other subject will be covered.
16:00 – 17:00 – Final words -- Open discussion and evaluation
Graduates without Anticipation membership may purchase a $25 special membership to attend Anticipation. Tour the art show, browse the dealer’s room or attend after 5 pm programming.
Labels: SF