The Water Cycle Rap

Traditionally Hip Hop has been viewed by many as oversexualized music with violent and offensive lyrics and while there do exist many songs that fit that description there are a multiplicity of Hip Hop songs that tell the story of social injustice and inequaliy and it is through the lyrics and the beat that the artists atempts to reach the masses and create change. Using Hip Hop in the classroom is easy to do when teaching intermediate and senior levels and also very easy when you are teaching Social Studies, History and Language and for these grades and subject areas there exists a great deal of resources for teachers to learn how to incorporate Hip Hop into their lesson plans. However, as a primary Science teacher it has been my goal to make Science more engaging and "upbeat" for my students and I have learned that by incorporating pop culture wherever possible into the Science Curriculum always leads to success. Unfortunately the Science Curriculum, unlike many of the other subjects, still focuses extensively on the transmission of facts and the ability of the student to memorize and regurgitate facts which in today's day and age seems obsolete because students now have any fact that want accessible to them with the click of a button. However, as an educator who is responsible for ensuring that my students meet the expectations as they are outlined in the ministry document, I have no choice but to teach my students about the steps of the water cycle, wind cycle and wood cycle, I have no choice but to ensure that they can list the properties of solids, liquids and gases and no choice but to teach them about the characteristics of the six different categories of animals and as such I am always looking for new ways of making it easier for them to memorize steps, facts and information and Hip Hop, rap specifically has proven to be a very successul method. In todays world where we are connected to one another on a global scale, there are several resources that already exist that have been made by other teachers to use in the classroom but they also provide ideas for other teachers to create their own resources than can later be shared with others to use. I use the water cycle rap with my students every year and then after we learn it we create our own rap using the same steps.