The first time I thought about incorporating another subject into my teaching was in 2019, during the Teacher Preparation Program to become an IB teacher. I was teaching my grade 6 Gymnastic unit called – Expression of the body. While creating the summative, I thought about a different way for students to do Criterion A . Instead of giving them a list of questions to the students asking them to show their knowledge and understanding of gymnastics, I wanted to have a summative that would allow them to demonstrate their learning outcomes in a different way not just answering few questions in a paper. 

So I asked my students to create a POEM using the knowledge they had acquired from gymnastics. For Criterion C, they had to create a performance. One of the requirements was supposed to link the poem with the performance, such that by reading the poem one could learn about the movements they have in their performance. So the L&L teacher could look at the poem and assess the structure and elements of poetry, and for PHE I would look at the knowledge about the movements incorporated into the poem. 

We were all excited about this. Some students decided to record the poem, others to rap it, and others created a poster. We had a variety of outcomes.  Each student employed the way they feel confident, and that would allow them to present the best final outcome. 

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I managed to do this unit by bringing another subject knowledge but I did not achieve the aim of IDU 100% as I was working alone only using student’s L&L knowledge about how to create a poem. To have a better understanding, let’s have a look at the aim of IDU. 

Aim of an IDU

The Aim of an interdisciplinary unit is to allow students to develop and demonstrate interdisciplinary understanding(the ability to find a connection between 2 or more disciplines) which means, bringing together concepts, methods, or forms of communication from two or more disciplines or established areas of expertise so that they can explain a phenomenon, solve a problem, create a product, or raise a new question in ways that would have been unlikely through a single discipline.

There are some interesting points about this statement, let’s zoom in on the part that says; explain a phenomenon. Going back to my grade 6 unit – BODY EXPRESSION. How does expression look in L&L through the poem? How does expression look in PHE through movements? How does the expression of movements impact the expression of the poem? How does learning to express myself through movements help me express myself better in a poem or vice versa?  What are the common concepts that we can explore during this IDU? 

An in-depth interrogation of these questions can give you a great idea of how you can create an IDU between L&L and PHE. In case you plan one please share. 

Interdisciplinary Unit Between PHE and Science 

This will give you a clear picture of how you can create your IDU, as I had an opportunity to run this IDU, proposed by my MYP Coordinator Smita Gangola (the lady in the profile picture). She invited the 2 departments to brainstorm and find that phenomenon, a problem, a product, or a new question that would have been unlikely through a single discipline.

We wanted to explore nutrition, so we asked ourselves what connection we can make between the 2 subjects so that the students can bring this together and create one product. 

The science team suggested talking about Energy stored in food, the Organization of different types of food based on their nutrients (Carbohydrates, fats, Proteins, etc.), cellular respiration, aerobic respiration, Aerobic exercises, Exploring Aerobic and anaerobic processes to fitness goals.

Listening to that, I suggested bringing the components of fitness health and skill related, I wanted students to learn how to test the level of their fitness and be able to identify strengths and weaknesses and take action by creating a program that would allow them to improve their fitness, for that we would bring also principles of training, methods of training. 

From the discussion, we decided that it would be ideal to have a diet program aligned with a training program to achieve the student’s respective goals as a final outcome. So the student’s role would be a personal trainer and a nutritionist. 

We found a unique product that would allow students to make a connection between the 2 subjects to come up with a product, answering the last point of the Aim that says: to raise a new question in ways that would have been unlikely through a single discipline. For the students to create a complete training program they look at the food and exercises they require in these 2 subjects. 

So we decided to give the unit name Eating Smart and Training easy, 

After having this discussion we move forward to see what kind of concepts can be explored in both subjects PHE and Science that will allow students to use their prior knowledge and transfer it to the new reality. 

Key concept: Change – We wanted students to create a program, How diet/training program can change their life? 

Related concepts we had: Energy, balance and choices – We wanted students to understand how the change of these concepts (Energy, balance and choices) can also impact their life. 

Global context: Identities and Relationships – Area of exploration Lifestyle Choices – We wanted them to understand that they can have choices that could bring changes into their life. 

We used these concepts to come up with one statement that could guide us ( teachers) and students through the process of teaching and learning, and the statement was: 

Changing habits for a healthy body and mind may require a balance between

energy intake and fitness lifestyle choices.

See below the summary of the unit: 

How to introduce the IDU unit to the students? 

The first thing you need to do even before talking about the concept is to ensure that the students have a clear understanding that this is an interdisciplinary unit. You can ask students to discuss in groups, What is the meaning of interdisciplinary? Why do we use an interdisciplinary approach? How to use an interdisciplinary approach?  What is an interdisciplinary unit? Once they discussed in groups the teacher can ask them to create a paragraph that best describes IDU based on group discussion 

After that, you can share with the students and discuss their understanding of the AIM. It is very important they have a clear understanding of this so that they can move in the right direction, and together build a connection of what this interesting journey will look like, and how the knowledge from the 2 subjects will help them to come with a unique outcome. 

In this case, through physical and health Education-related knowledge, such as components of fitness, training methods, training principles, nutrition and lifestyle goal and Sciences understanding of body physiology, energy transformations and consequences of nutrition intake, students will explore how choices in different food (energy source) intake may affect their fitness goal.

In summary, this is what is going to happen in this unit: Students will test their fitness level and identify their strengths and weaknesses, having that data they will create a goal according to their needs: let’s have an example where the students want to improve their muscular strength and agility, once they have a goal they will create a training and diet program to help to achieve their goal.