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.
Charity,
ReplyDeleteWonderful lesson!
Excellent how you connected the environment they reside in with the concept of ecosystems. Students are more apt to take ownership and responsibility of their learning.
Nice way of integrating digital photography into the lesson and then the students proceeding to put together a PowerPoint presentation.
The journal prompt provides an excellent assessment tool to check higher order thinking skills where students need to justify their answers based on content area knowledge.
Questions for you!
1. How were you able to post the PPT presentations to the blog?
2. Pictures - Old growth forest in Washington State?
In order to get the PPT presentation on the blog, I printed the PPT as 9 per page, then scanned it as a JPEG.
ReplyDeleteThe pictures are ones actually taken by the students. They were taken at a waterfront park in Tacoma Washington called Point Defiance Park. It has a huge forested area that has gorgeous old growth trees and various other vegetation. The issue is the invasive species that are attempting to take over our native species, and how we get rid of these in order to keep our old growth forests healthy for the future.
Wow! This looks fantastic. You make it look very professional and it makes me want to go live there. Your blog is what I would want to find when looking for other people with similar interests.
ReplyDeleteI like how you get your students to consider the effect of different variables.