The Rocket Project: An Interdisciplinary Activity for Low Achievers‪.‬

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Integration has often been proposed as a potential cure for many of the ills associated with teaching young adolescent students, particularly in subjects that are perceived to have a high level of alienation--mathematics for example. A provocative analogy is presented by Kleiman (1991), who argues that if we taught music the way we traditionally teach mathematics, students would practice scales for years without playing a tune. Mathematics should perhaps be used in rich environments integrated with other learning areas, but the question remains whether students, especially weaker students, learn the basic mathematics concepts when teaching and learning occurs in an integrated environment. This is the story of one example of an interdisciplinary form of integration where the integrity of the various academic disciplines remained clear, while at the same time the connections between subjects were emphasised.