Our Class eBook

Technology is alive and well with our students!



Today we put the finishing touches on our eBook.

Here is a photo of our class editors Shereen and Keaton working on compiling all of the student work into the book. Every student in the class wrote a chapter for this book. Shereen and Keaton asked the class to email their finished work in Pages so that they could put it all together. These two students then collated all the work and made it into the finished book. Initially we wanted to make an ePub format but we had trouble controlling the layout as we had a lot of pictures to include in the book. This book is all about our class inquiry into rice. Most of the content for this book has come from primary resources. We used only a few references from the Internet.

We agreed to make it into a PDF so that the students could have greater control over the layout. Take a look at the finished work here via Issu.

Open publication - Free publishing - More grade 5

An Inquiry into Rice Plants in the Classroom

Here is the video taken during the rice plant inquiry in the classroom.

A Deeper Inquiry Into Rice

As promised, today Ms Jane brought in some rice plants for 5MJ to look at. She brought red rice, white rice and rice seeds for planting. The students were very interested to look at the plants and to continue their inquiry into how rice is grown and distributed.

Each student wrote a blog post about the rice. Some students were so excited they decided to make a poster about the rice. Other students made a video to show the grain of rice inside the husk.

We chatted about many things throughout this lesson.

Ms Jane brought in 3 kinds of rice

5MJ takes a closer look at the rice plants

They were excited to try to open up the rice to find the seed.

Rifqi takes a look and finds to rice grain inside.

Here is the rice grain for the red rice.

We watched a news clip that Ms Agnes found from Indosiar TV about rotten rice. Some people have no choice but to eat Nasi Aking which is rice from a rubbish bin that has been thrown away. This rice is dried out and cooked again. It is eaten with shredded coconut to make it taste better.

Here is the Indosiar video clip about Nasi Aking.

Student blogging in action ...



Many students made posters and movies which they captured with their Photo Booth on their Macbooks. This was a spontaneous reaction as they were intent on capturing their personal learning.

How Much Land Does a Rice Farmer Have in Indonesia?

Today we researched about how much land does a rice farmer have in Indonesia. We found the answer on Detik.com

"Di Pulau Jawa, rata-rata petani hanya memiliki 0,3 hektar sawah. Seandainya satu hektar sawah bisa menghasilkan lima ton gabah kering giling, berarti mereka hanya mendapat 1,5 ton gabah sekali panen. Jika dalam setahun terjadi dua kali panen, mereka hanya memperoleh tiga ton setahun. Itu setara dengan Rp 9 juta per tahun, atau kurang dari Rp 1 juta per bulan."

We copy pasted the answer into Google Translate. Here is the translation:

"In Java, the average farmer only has 0.3 hectares of rice fields. If one hectare of rice can produce five tons of dry unhulled, meaning they only get 1.5 tons of grain at harvest. If it occurs twice in a year of harvest, they only get three tons a year. That’s equivalent to Rp 9 million per year, or less than Rp 1 million per month."

The students converted the answer into square meters by making a long division using a small whiteboard.

Student Questions About Rice

Last Thursday 5MJ brainstormed some questions about rice farming in Indonesia. We have learned that Indonesia is the 3rd largest consumer of rice in the world and it is the largest importer of rice.

5MJ students wondered about rice farming ..

Each student wrote a blog post about their rice questions. Today in class we will watch a video that Ms Jane made about rice farming near Bogor. The students will also be working on finishing their information report on cooking a meal for Rp 14.000 for four people.