3 Teaching ICT at KS2 in other contexts – simulations

Cross-curricular activity using Google Earth

This activity is based around the National Curriculum’s objective to use simulations and explore models ‘in order to answer “What if … ?” questions, to investigate and evaluate the effect of changing values and to identify patterns and relationships’. At ICT Level 3, pupils are to demonstrate that ‘they make appropriate choices when using ICT-based models or simulations to help them find things out and solve problems. They describe their use of ICT and its use outside school’.

Other online simulation games

Lemonade Stand is a simple text-based simulation of running a lemonade stall. You can buy or sell supplies and the different options allow you to change how much profit/loss you are making. This would involve cross-curricular maths skills.

The Great Balloon Race is a relatively simple simulation with two parameters – using a ‘burner’ and ‘vent’ to control the cartoon balloon over a series of objects in a countryside landscape.

Design a room is a Geffrye Museum history resource allowing you to design different types of rooms. It takes you through an animated walkthrough of rooms of different periods.

Plant Force is quite a complex plant-growing simulation with different parameters for optimal growth and outcomes leading to profit or loss.

This simple graphical modelling exercise for a classroom or park is aimed at year 5 pupils.

The coffee simulation game is a year 3/4 exercise from the Northumberland grid for learning enabling students to make informed choices about making ‘Colin’ a cup of coffee.

ECO2 Home asks how much money and carbon dioxide can be saved by running the energy system in a house efficiently. Quite a complicated simulation for KS2.

These online simulations are just a few of hundreds available on the internet. However, just because they are readily available doesn’t mean that they can be used ‘cold’ or ‘out of the box’ with pupils. Like Tom Barrett above, it might be wise to think of cross-curricular contextual opportunities when introducing these – or maybe they could be used as starters or plenaries to enrich or highlight other areas of the curriculum. Rather than just lay these resources out in front of learners, it is much better to try and build in frequent opportunities for discussion and reflection and sometimes reworking in different media.

For example, ‘Lemonade Stand’, ‘Plant Force’ and ‘ECO2 Home’ might benefit from an interesting variation where you could lay some of the figures out in a spreadsheet to see the discrete data and how it affects the outcomes of profit and loss or other parameters.

The ‘Great Balloon Race’ could be linked to the ‘Storybird’ (http://storybird.com/) storytelling site, or similar, where elements of the race could be incorporated into a simple linear narrative. You have list-making and other opportunities also built into that activity.

‘Design a room’ would obviously be linked to history and historical account; again this could involve quite specific use of vocabulary in writing.

The ‘coffee simulation game’ lends itself beautifully to a manipulation of the data using sheets of paper and discussing the options to solve the riddle of Colin’s perfect cup of coffee.