Hello! It's that time again! I can't believe how fast summer goes! I am always sad to see the summer end, but there is also something exciting about the start of a new school year. It's nice to be able to have a fresh start and regroup!
I have two sections of Earth Science this year and I am starting with my idea from a few posts ago. The original Buck Institute project is called "A Balancing Act' and was focused on learning about ecosystems in a biology class. I am modifying it for an intro earth science project focusing on how the four spheres are connected. The students will be working in design teams to design a set for a reality tv show where the premise is that people are put into a man made biosphere to live. Each class is one biosphere and each design team is a different ecosystem. Within each team, each student will focus on one of the following aspects, geosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. So far I have done just a few intro activities, including watching the Ted Talk by Jane Poynter on her experience living in Biosphere 2. I ended my last class by giving the students a memo that they have been selected to be on a design team for the new reality tv show and I showed the trailer to the 1996 movie "Biodome." Hopefully they are excited.
Now I just have to plan the next steps. In the original project the teacher had the students do posters and a report. In my previous post I had mentioned possibly having students create a mural in my classroom. Due to how many students are in the class I think a mural may be difficult. But, since we just deployed chrome books to every student I think I will incorporate technology. Maybe I can come up with a 3D modeling program. I still have to think the project part through. The key is going to be chunking the project into small manageable pieces and ensuring that the projects represent mastered content knowledge. So here I go. I will share my results.
Saturday, August 27, 2016
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Geodes!
For my Earth Science final project I had my students make their own geodes. They had to research and come up with a method of making geodes. They worked in groups of three and they had to have 3 geodes to display at the end. One was supposed to have the smallest crystals, one with the biggest crystals, and one was supposed to be the most natural looking. Here are some of their results. Turned into a very cool project. It took some of the students a lot of experimenting to get what they wanted. How often do students really get to "play"? Usually we just give them a set experiment and they have to follow it exactly. This was an awesome way for them to explore and figure out what worked and what didn't work.
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Idea!!
I am supposed to be grading....but I just had what I think is an awesome idea. If I don't write it down now I will forget it. So I'll put it in here, hopefully this summer I can the details ironed out and then one of my first posts in the fall can be showing some cool results! We'll see!
I found a PBL from Buck Institute (BIE) for a life science project on ecosystems. The project is set for 7th grade. But after looking at it I think I could turn it into a starting earth science project and make it higher level/more rigorous and add content. I also had a few changes to make it my own.
The original project from Buck Institute uses the driving question "How can we design a completely self-sustaining ecosystem?" The project is for students to act as "set designers" for a TV reality show who need to propose a working ecosystem for an artificial biosphere. You can find the official project in the book, "PBL starter Kit" from the Buck Institute for Education. You can also go to BIE,org and create an account to have access to PBL information and other projects.
My idea is to keep the same concept but have the final project be a movie poster or show advertisement in the form of murals. Each group would do a different ecosystem and paint the murals around my classroom.
So that is my idea in a nutshell. Its just a brain storm now. But I'll let you know as I come up with more ideas and figure out more of where I'm going with it.
I found a PBL from Buck Institute (BIE) for a life science project on ecosystems. The project is set for 7th grade. But after looking at it I think I could turn it into a starting earth science project and make it higher level/more rigorous and add content. I also had a few changes to make it my own.
The original project from Buck Institute uses the driving question "How can we design a completely self-sustaining ecosystem?" The project is for students to act as "set designers" for a TV reality show who need to propose a working ecosystem for an artificial biosphere. You can find the official project in the book, "PBL starter Kit" from the Buck Institute for Education. You can also go to BIE,org and create an account to have access to PBL information and other projects.
My idea is to keep the same concept but have the final project be a movie poster or show advertisement in the form of murals. Each group would do a different ecosystem and paint the murals around my classroom.
So that is my idea in a nutshell. Its just a brain storm now. But I'll let you know as I come up with more ideas and figure out more of where I'm going with it.
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Time to try again!
Well...I did good for a while...but myself slip and I stopped updating. I'm back and motivated to try again. I wasn't sure where to start up again since its been so long. I doubt any one is interested in a long drawn out saga about everything I've done this year. Instead I'll just give you a few highlights and successes, a few ways I want to improve, and some ideas for next year.
The big push in my district this year has been of course technology, but also something called Project Based Learning. Some teachers are balking at this...and the big question is how can we still hit the content with projects and ensure the students learn the required material? For me, I think it will be challenging but I am excited! PBL fits my teaching style and I think I can blend the lecture/content within the projects. At least that's my goal! I tried one PBL unit in Earth Science this year and I think that although it was not exactly as cool as I thought it would be, I learned a lot about what not to do when setting up my project. All PBL's center on an essential question. For this one, my big question was "To what extent do humans own natural resources?" The students picked an issue to look at and examined the question through their group's issue. For example I had a group look at deforestation. They investigated how the ways in which humans use trees for economic gain and the impacts this has. Another group focused on the use of plastic and the effects. The students created videos that included written text, interviews, video clips, etc. My biggest success was that student engagement was awesome! Every day almost all students were working and focused during class. The students did the research and I think they had good information....the part that didn't go so well was the transition of the research and knowledge they gained to the video. The content of the actual videos themselves was low. The students could talk to me about the issue and had some great insight into the essential question but the video's didn't showcase that knowledge. Part of a good PBL is the publishing component. Originally I wanted the students to have a product that they would show to others outside of the classroom. This part got pushed to the side toward the end. I think if I had focused on the public presentation they may have been more focused on getting the content into the videos.
Other positives from the year are just that I think I am continually gaining more and more activities for my "toolbox". I can take any content and then in my head I can go through different strategies and its easy for me to pull out a strategy that I think will fit for the activity. I think my big goal for next year and this seems big but I'm going to try to do it in baby steps. I tend to try to jump all in so I plan to slow down and do one thing at a time. That said...my goal is to come up with an essential question and a project for all my units. And then embed all my strategies into the unit so that the students are still getting content. For example, the students seem to really seem to do well with foldable activities where they take notes in some sort of foldable and keep everything today. So maybe I can still do that...but online...and then they use that as a journal for their project. This is all very preliminary and I'm just getting my ideas together. As I finish up the year I need something to get excited about,,.so this is me brainstorming to get myself motivated. I still want to keep a heavy focus on literacy and do a lot of reading and writing. Not sure what that will look like but I'll update as I figure it out!
This entry has turned into a ramble and I'm not sure that I made any concrete points! So I'll leave it here with the idea that I will add and post as I figure out more firm plans to incorporate project based learning and technology into my classroom next year!
The big push in my district this year has been of course technology, but also something called Project Based Learning. Some teachers are balking at this...and the big question is how can we still hit the content with projects and ensure the students learn the required material? For me, I think it will be challenging but I am excited! PBL fits my teaching style and I think I can blend the lecture/content within the projects. At least that's my goal! I tried one PBL unit in Earth Science this year and I think that although it was not exactly as cool as I thought it would be, I learned a lot about what not to do when setting up my project. All PBL's center on an essential question. For this one, my big question was "To what extent do humans own natural resources?" The students picked an issue to look at and examined the question through their group's issue. For example I had a group look at deforestation. They investigated how the ways in which humans use trees for economic gain and the impacts this has. Another group focused on the use of plastic and the effects. The students created videos that included written text, interviews, video clips, etc. My biggest success was that student engagement was awesome! Every day almost all students were working and focused during class. The students did the research and I think they had good information....the part that didn't go so well was the transition of the research and knowledge they gained to the video. The content of the actual videos themselves was low. The students could talk to me about the issue and had some great insight into the essential question but the video's didn't showcase that knowledge. Part of a good PBL is the publishing component. Originally I wanted the students to have a product that they would show to others outside of the classroom. This part got pushed to the side toward the end. I think if I had focused on the public presentation they may have been more focused on getting the content into the videos.
Other positives from the year are just that I think I am continually gaining more and more activities for my "toolbox". I can take any content and then in my head I can go through different strategies and its easy for me to pull out a strategy that I think will fit for the activity. I think my big goal for next year and this seems big but I'm going to try to do it in baby steps. I tend to try to jump all in so I plan to slow down and do one thing at a time. That said...my goal is to come up with an essential question and a project for all my units. And then embed all my strategies into the unit so that the students are still getting content. For example, the students seem to really seem to do well with foldable activities where they take notes in some sort of foldable and keep everything today. So maybe I can still do that...but online...and then they use that as a journal for their project. This is all very preliminary and I'm just getting my ideas together. As I finish up the year I need something to get excited about,,.so this is me brainstorming to get myself motivated. I still want to keep a heavy focus on literacy and do a lot of reading and writing. Not sure what that will look like but I'll update as I figure it out!
This entry has turned into a ramble and I'm not sure that I made any concrete points! So I'll leave it here with the idea that I will add and post as I figure out more firm plans to incorporate project based learning and technology into my classroom next year!
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