Piksel Bacteria

Today was one of those days where as a teacher you just capture the moment and go with the flow. Sadly the British Curriculum is not as user friendly as the NZ curriculum, and is rather prescriptive. However being 2.5 days away from the spring break, and trying all the time to integrate ICT into the class curriculum, and trying to work within a meaningful context, and being Kiwi....... I had a fab morning with Year 5, totally away from the planning.
On the way to school Kris the Year 5 teacher told me how the students were looking through the digital microscopes at bacteria and drawing them. Soooo I raced to my room, grabbed my iPad looked for a bacteria app and yahoo found Piksel Bacteria. While not totally top end higher order thinking app it was fun and it really opened the students eyes to various aspects of the life of bacteria

This app instantly  open the camera on the iPad. Pointing the camera at a surface, you can watch the number of "points grow" as the red pixels, representing the bacteria multiply and spread on that surface. On clean surfaces eg the toilet, the iPad provides feedback, and its  game over.

The Year 5 students had fun exploring various surfaces for varying amounts of bacteria in-conjunction with their science topic. Some places were quite alarming eg the AC, the bacteria kept on growing in number and the points were really clocking up. The cracks in the  floor tiles and of course shoes, socks, plants, unwashed hand, and  the skin ;under the rings on Kris's fingers all were alarming for bacteria growth. Others were also learning curves eg washed hands, hair and heads in the sunlight, the toilet and the door handles were basically game over. These provoked questions as to why.

Definitely fun, and a great way to end the term.