Page 11 - 瑪利諾神父教會學校2020年

Maryknoll Fathers' School–

Air Swimmer

Air Swimmer is a cross-
curricular STEM activity organized
by Maryknoll Fathers’ School for
the whole school.
In recent years, Air Swimmer
has been popular online, and the
fish “flying” in the air is in fact a
fish-shape Helium balloon. In order
to introduce the knowledge about
Helium and remote balloons, and
at the same time give students a
Learning focus: chance to control an Air Swimmer,
Maryknoll Fathers’ School held a
Students learnt the characteristics of Helium gas, cross-curricular (Science, English
the principles behind the ascending, descending Language and Chinese Language)
Science and turning of a remote balloon, and the materials STEM activity, aiming at enhancing
required. The concept of centre of gravity was also
introduced. the understanding and cultivating
English Students learnt English vocabulary related to the the interest in science of fellow
Language activity through crossword. schoolmates, and ultimately 《飛魚大探索》 Air Swimmer
reaching the goal of promoting
Students were introduced to popular science writing
skills. Different topics were assigned to students popular science.
Chinese according to their forms. This allowed students to
Language think about the principles behind remote balloons
and further understand the requirements of popular
science writing.
Students designed a unique and feasible sketch
of an Air Swimmer after learning about different
Creativity forms of Air Swimmers. They were required to give
design
a detailed description of the control and floating
method.

Content:

Students firstly learnt about the structure and flying principles of Air Swimmer, and then learnt about
the difference and characteristics of helium and hydrogen. By observing the helium gas balloon of different
shapes, including penguin, devil fish and other irregular shapes, students’ understanding of Air Swimmers
was deepened.
After that, students had an opportunity to control the Air Swimmers and experience the joy.
Finally, there were a Chinese popular science writing competition and English crossword at school as
well as creative sketching as an extended task.
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