Lesson unit 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' by Jules Verne
by Ute Massow
At the beginning of the lesson unit, all students in class 7d were encouraged to use their imagination and draw what they thought the interior of the Earth looked like. The true structure of the globe was covered in geography class. Following that, the main characters of the novel and their character traits were discussed. The deciphering of secret codes, a key event in the novel, was particularly exciting. The students created and decoded writings in Old Icelandic runes. Geography class covered the geography of Iceland. The travel route of the time, 1864, was compared to travel dates of today, 2023, as well as the equipment, of which there were hardly any differences in 2023.
Next, the students were introduced to prehistoric animals and plants from the expedition - the focus was on the battle between the Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus in the Lidenbrock Sea. Biology class covered further prehistoric animals and plants, making it an engaging mix of science fiction and facts.
Finally, the students developed a board game in which they came up with factual questions about the novel and designed event cards that led to success. Learning German can be fun this way. Hopefully, the board game will be used again in the upcoming reading night, as classes 5 and 6 also read this novel as part of the project "Our School Reads."
In addition, we watched the movie adaptation of the novel and had lively discussions about the differences and their impact.
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