3E's - Environmental Ecosystem Exploration

Through this structured inquiry experience my students had a wonderful opportunity to get out in the world that surrounds them and investigate the natural environment that they enjoy being a part of here in the Pacific Northwest.  By investigating the local forest areas they were able to see the variety available in an ecosystem and also see invasive species and how they affect the plants in the local ecosystem.

The first thing the students did was take pictures of the plant life in the forest area.  This let them get a nice close look at the plants and take them back to work with, without destroying the environment by taking pieces of it back instead. 

Students then created a PowerPoint presentation with their images and specified what category they fell into and whether they were an invasive species.  If I were to do this in the actual classroom and had additional time to spend on the lesson, I would give the students a few days to investigate the species, and other details about the plants and give more information on them.

In their science journal, students then would answer the following question:  If one thing about your ecosystem were to change, such as the amount of rain it gets, the amount of sunlight, or the minerals available how do you think that would affect the plant species available within your plot of land?

Though I will always feel that open inquiry will provide the largest return for learning, I also understand where this type of lesson falls in well with the content we want students to learn.  It also provides for more succinct use of classroom time compared to open inquiry and therefore would be used more often. 

Global Warming



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Though people disagree on the scientific evidence and what it means, I agree with the majority of the scientific communities throughout the world including organizations such as the National Wildlife Foundation, National Geographic, NASA and NOAA.  They all agree that global warming is indeed something that we need to worry about for ourselves and the future of our world.   If we do not make changes now to what we are doing to our world then our polar ice caps WILL melt.  According to the National Resources Defense Council this will result in rising ocean levels of as much as three feet by the year 2100.  In the United States this would results in massive flooding of approximately 22,400 acres of land mostly in the southern Atlantic region.  Another result of the polar ice caps melting is temperature change.  When the ice caps melt they will no longer be cooling the wind flows that normally go across them, which means cooler temps and affected food production (2005). 

The first question I would pose regarding this Science Inquiry Experience is why the results vary per person?  I think a few more specific details on the experiment would have helped. Such as how many ice cubes to use, how big of a bowl/glass, etc.  I completed my experiment more than once in order to verify my results since I was so unsure about the exact procedures.

How could more technology be involved in the experiment?  Could we have some specific links to unbiased documents that give the facts for both sides?  Or videos that explain the science at work?

The last thing I would like to say about this experiment and on the subject of global warming is to have people take a look at some of the simulations available that explain the science at work.  For my colleagues,I have included a few links to interesting sites, simulations, and games in the bottom right corner of this blog, under links.

~Charity

References

National Resources Defense Council (2005).  Global Warming Puts the Arctic on Thin Ice.  Retrieved November 21, 2010 from http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/qthinice.asp.

STEM 5 E's Strategy Lesson Plan

This week I really struggled with creating the STEM Strategies Lesson Plan.  Since I am not currently teaching, I found it difficult to come up with a topic that I wanted to create a lesson plan for.  I knew I wanted to do something in the Astronomy field, but wasn’t sure what specific topic to cover.  So after considering a few different topics such as planetary orbits, or the phases of the moon, I finally settled on a lesson where students were able to get hands on experience creating lunar impact craters.  I found a wonderful activity through the NASA website to work with and used it as a basis for creating the lesson plan. 

Having had previous experience with the 5 E’s strategy during my Bachelor’s degree classes, I found it was nice to get back to using it again.  I appreciate how effective the 5 E’s method is in creating a lesson plan with all the necessary components.  Too often items such as extensions and yes even conclusions are often kept out of lesson plans.  The 5 E’s method makes sure they are included which is highly beneficial in helping students learn the content and apply it to real life contexts.    

To implement this lesson a couple of practical items would need to be addressed.  The main issue would be the lack of time available in a single class period. To really catch every part of the 5 E’s lesson, this lesson may need to be cut into two days or be done in a block schedule school.  Another practical item is close supervision of the students to make sure they are on task and not using the marbles in an inappropriate matter or making a mess with the flour and cocoa powder.