CALL Lesson 8 (Apr 23-24)

During the 1st Term, at the end of Unit 2 of our textbook, English Train, we read a cultural text about the United States of America (SB p. 22). It mentioned (= referia) that America is so BIG that it has different "time zones" (= fusos horários).

I promised a CALL lesson about this topic. The time is here for the first multidisciplinary lesson about it. Yes, it's multidisciplinary, because it will include Geography, Math, ICTs (information and communication technologies) and, naturally, English!

Interested?! I hope so. Let's start and try to answer some questions.

Objectives

Students will be able to:

— give a simple definition of a time zone and identify simple ideas about time zones

— identify the number of time zones in the United States

— identify the different areas of the world with day and night (at the time of class)

— use given IT resources on the Web to find the information

Activities

1. What is a time zone? Do you know? If not, let's do a search to find out (= descobrir)!

Open a new Internet page and write "time zone" +definition +wikipedia" (you can copy and paste this) in the Google search area (below the Web address area).

When you have your answer, copy-paste it below in the work area for your class.

 

2. How many time zones are there on Earth? Let's take a look at a map that will give you the answer. Let's try to understand what the vertical lines represent and then count the number of spaces between those vertical lines. Those are the time zones.

When you have your answer, copy-paste it below in the work area for your class.

 

3. And now let's do some very simple Math. How many hours are there in a day? And how many time zones are there on Earth? Is there any similarity or equivalence between those two numbers? If so, what is it? How many hours are there in each time zone?

When you have your answer, copy-paste it below in the work area for your class.

 

4. Well, the text on p. 22 of our textbook says that the United States has different time zones, because it's a big country. How many time zones are there in continental America? Let's look at this map to find out. How many shades (= tons) of blue are there? Each one corresponds to a time zone.

When you have your answer, copy-paste it below in the work area for your class.

And now let's look at the map in #2 again to see the U.S. time zones with all the others in the world.

 

5. Finally, let's look at another map of world time zones. Do you notice two different background colors (= cores de fundo)? Why does the map have a white area and a grey area? What do they represent? Let's see which continents are in the white and the grey areas.

What other information does this map give us? Take a good look!

Before we finish, let's look at this map that gives us a different and very nice image of "day and night" in the world at the time of our class time.

 

* * * * * * * * * *

6.C: work done in class (23Apr07)

1. What is a time zone?

"A time zone is a region of the Earth that has adopted the same standard time, usually referred to as the local time". (Wikipedia)

time zone = local time

2. How many time zones are there on Earth?

There are 24 time zones in the world.

3. How many hours are there in each time zone?

There are 24 time zones and there are 24 hours in a day, so each time zone represents 1 hour.

(24 : 24 = 1)

4. How many time zones are there in continental USA?

There are 4 time zones in continental USA.

5. In what continents is it day at 9:50 (GMT +1), during class time? And in which ones is it already night?

It's night in the Americas and day in Europe, Africa and Asia. The grey area is night and the whte area is day.

* * * * * * * * * *

6.E: work done in class (24Apr07)

1. What is a time zone?

"A time zone is a region of the Earth that has adopted the same standard time, usually referred to as the local time". (Wikipedia)

time zone = local time

2. How many time zones are there on Earth?

there are 24 time zones

3. How many hours are there in each time zone?

There are 24 time zones and there are 24 hours in a day, so each time zone represents 1hour.

24 : 24 = 1

4. How many time zones are there in continental USA?

24 time zones in the USA.

5. In what continents is it day at 9:50 (GMT +1), during class time? And in which ones is it already night?

 

It's night in the Americas and day in Europe, Africa, Asia and part of Australia. The grey area is night and the whte area is day.

* * * * * * * * * *

6.D: work done in class (23Apr07)

1. What is a time zone?

"A time zone is a region of the Earth that has adopted the same standard time, usually referred to as the local time". (Wikipedia)

time zone = local time

2. How many time zones are there on Earth?

there are 24 time zones on earth. 

3. How many hours are there in each time zone?

There are 24 time zones and there are 24 hours in a day, so each time zone represents 1 hour.

24 : 24 = 1

4. How many time zones are there in continental USA? (The lesson was interrupted by me before this item could be dealt withe / at this point, because their behavior finally got to me after several "calls to attention" and "requests"!)

5. In what continents is it day at … (GMT +1), during class time? And in which ones is it already night?

* * * * * * * * * *

Report on CALL lesson 8

In the three classes, everything went according to plan. 6.C (20 students) and 6.E (23 students) participated eagerly, were motivated the whole time and enjoyed the lesson, as can be seen in their comments. The same cannot be said for 6.D, a class of 28 with at least half a dozen students who don't seem to be interested in learning English, much less interested in things about our blue planet, the Earth. And they can destabilize the rest in a more or less subtle way.

6.C and 6.E especially enjoyed:

— seeing the map with the 24 little squares at the bottom, learning that each square represents a time zone, counting them all, understanding that "0" (zero) represents GMT – the worldwide standard and where the clock is), and finally understanding the reason for the "+" and "-" signs after GMT;

— noticing the "coincidence" between the 24 hours in a day and the 24 time zones, and why each time zone represents one hour;

— looking at the 4 time zones in the United States (the reason for this lesson); and, last but not least,

— seeing the areas of the globe still sleeping, those in daytime, and those getting ready to sleep!

All these tools are fascinating and keep most students glued to the laptop (those working "hands on") and to the whiteboard where everything is being projected.

I used my laptop and an old video projector from school that needs maintenance. The last Google map didn't come out as well as expected (quite dark), but they came to my computer to see the lights on in the Americas and the sun shining in other parts, such as where we were. I also had the chance to ask them to notice some areas with few lights and what that meant.

I believe it was an unforgettable lesson for many of these students with concepts they will never forget, ecause they had to think about them and come to their own conclusions. Best of all, they can always come back and see things all over, because these lessons stay online.