Weinberg,+Tamara-920

Tamara Weinberg EDC 920 Final Project 6th Grade Geology Unit This is the culminating project for the 6th grade earth science class. During the year, students have studied fundamentals such as plate tectonics, construction of the Earth’s layers, water movement, ecosystems, and the formation and destruction of landforms. The essential question for this unit is “ How do internal and external sources of energy affect the Earth's systems?” This unit incorporates previous science knowledge and research skills into new learning about earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. The focus is on their causes and their effects on the earth as well as the impact on humans and other forms of life. The unit is designed as a webquest; and all tasks, resources, graphic organizers, assessment documents, and supplemental teacher materials are located on a wiki. This format facilitated collaboration between the teachers who created it- three 6th grade teachers, the Technology Resource Teacher (Jane Wilson) and the Library Media Specialist (myself). The wiki is called “Restless Earth Webquest” and is located here: http://tms-science.wikispaces.com/. The Information Literacy Standards addressed by this unit include: Students will use the Big 6 research process to present their research findings and draw a conclusion. Students will brainstorm to develop a set of subsidiary questions. Students will demonstrate time management throughout the research process by using a checklist with dates. Students will use appropriate research strategies with a search engine to navigate the Internet. Students will use organizing features of print, non-print, and electronic materials (tables of contents, menus, indexes, bibliographies, and hyperlinks) to locate and use information. Students will demonstrate the ability to record, in their own words, information from a variety of sources. Students will practice responsible and ethical use of all print, non-print, electronic, and Internet resources according to copyright law by citing the use of all primary and secondary information sources. Students will practice security measures when using the network The unit also covers science content standards, as elaborated on in the Teacher Notes section of the wiki. Embarking on the Restless Earth webquest is preceded by classroom work teaching many of the fundamentals required to understand how earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis work. This unit encourages students to generalize research skills that were previously taught during their social studies classes and apply them to researching a science topic. These previous lessons included how to develop research-worthy questions, how to access information in books (using the index and table of contents, scanning subheadings and captions), how to navigate through a website, how to take notes, how to cite sources, how to use keywords to search on the Internet. This project includes a brief recap of these lessons. The end products are a writing piece and a visual project to demonstrate learning. The students were also shown how to use Google News to find out about any recent occurrences or findings related to their topic. They had previously used Google Earth and Google maps, so another mini-lesson involved how to use these tools to locate information related to earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. The writing assignment is an expository piece of non-fiction to answer the essential question: // How do internal and external sources of energy affect the Earth's systems // ? Specific directions and a graphic organizer are included on the Tasks page of the wiki. Students will use the rubric (on the wiki, here is the direct link: []) to self-assess their efforts and the quality of their work. Teachers will evaluate student research using the same rubric and then apply a second rubric for the written piece and the project. Students have many opportunities for choice in this unit. They are able to select whether they will research earthquakes, volcanoes, or tsunamis. They also choose which role they will focus on: background researcher, historian, geologist or environmentalist. Students who need a less challenging assignment are offered the option of being a “safety expert” responsible for determining how individuals can prepare for these disasters. Students work in groups to develop research questions to enable scaffolding for students who need support. Students then select their own research questions from among all the questions developed by students studying the same type of geological event. The questions should fit their chosen role, so they have a great deal of control over what they will be researching. Although each student must prepare a written piece to summarize their research, they have many options for the accompanying visual portion that will be displayed at a parent-attended “Restless Earth Fair” to demonstrate what they have learned. Project choices include a poster (physical or online), a brochure, a PowerPoint presentation, a 3D model, an experiment, or a video (possibly of an experiment conducted at home). There are many adaptations available for this unit, primarily by providing books and websites at a variety of reading levels. The links provided enable students to go directly to a recommended page, or more advanced students can navigate on their own through more complex sites. Students are also able to use keywords to search using a safe search engine or using a Google custom search set up to include the websites that teachers had selected. These options are all available on the resources pages (one generic and one for each topic) on the wiki. Students also may choose to use graphic organizers to assist with note-taking and writing. The research portion incorporates different learning styles, as students rotated through a different station each day to utilize web-based resources, books, or videos. The wiki also contains links to interactive websites to enhance student learning. Although the students were assigned to a research station each day, they were able to work at their own pace because they repeated the stations and they were able to continue to work by accessing the videos and websites from home, or all three resources in the after-school homework club. Most of the project is conducted in various areas of the Library Media Center, so with three classroom teachers, the LMS, the TRT, and occasionally a special education teacher, students were able to receive a great deal of special attention. This setup is also appreciated by students because they enjoy the opportunity to work with students from other classes.
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