Floral Park Memorial High School students in Gina D’Ammassa’s Spanish IV class constructed replicas of Spanish cities as part of their unit “En La Ciudad.”
The students were broken into groups. Each group selected a city in Spain to research and used Google Earth and MapQuest to create 3-D prototypes. They then answered targeted questions in Spanish about their city and recorded them on an audio file. The audio file was converted to a QR code and attached to their respective projects.
Each city also included technology, thanks school librarian Larissa Simonovski. Ms. Simonovski taught the class how to program Ozobots using lines, colors and codes. Each group used these elements to create a roadway and watched excitedly as their “self-driving cars” made their way around their city replicas.
During a recent class lesson, the students had an opportunity to view their classmates projects and listen to the audio files they created. They were then asked to state which city they liked the most, to draw comparisons between their Spanish city and Floral Park, and to identify an attraction in their Spanish city they would like to visit.
According to Ms. D’Ammassa the projects helped to reinforce the students’ vocabulary, and allowed them to practice their grammar and pronunciation.
