0025. Sweet Cells: a delicious discovery of biology

Il corso BILINGUE SBS poggia su due ambiti  importanti di apprendimento bilingue: la literacy e le discipline CLIL. Questa settimana la nostra insegnante madrelingua Nicole con i ragazzi delle due classi 5^ bilingue ci illustra come si possa imparare la cellula in “science” utilizzando un approccio didattico innovativo che è il CLIL, come ad esempio qui raccontato,  attraverso l’utilizzo di reali oggetti come le caramelle, si possono insegnare le parti che compongono la cellula. Gli studenti, divertendosi, imparano più facilmente e velocemente.

Our year 5 SBS science project is well on its way! Our students had lots of fun learning how important cells are in all living organisms. Firstly, we discovered the parts of the cell, which are called organelles, and then we focused on their specific function. To help the children understand this topic better, an element of fun was added ! What better way of learning about cells is there than using sweets?

The students created a model of a cell to show how different types of sweets can be used to represent each particular organelle. Our kids found this project a great way to learn about cells while having fun!

This is a nice example of a CLIL lesson. What is CLIL? It is an acronym saying Content and Language Integrated Learning, which means that the students access content through a vehicular language, which in this case is English. In addition in a CLIL lesson realia and other objects are introduced as an efficient support together with the language so that the students learn by doing and having fun.

One student said, “That’s wonderful! Can we eat our cell when it’s done? I can name each organelle of a cell now” or another one replied “This project has been awesome: I didn’t expect to build a cell with sweets. I can describe each part quite spontaneously in English”. This is evidence that shows the innovative and surprising effectiveness of a CLIL lesson.